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A year ago my family threw my mother in law a surprise 60th birthday party. For most that alone seems like the makings for a sweet memorable day for our family and friends. But this was no ordinary surprise party, it was a gathering of people to try to infuse all our strength and love into this wonderful birthday woman. My mother in law was battling cancer. It had already been a fast, hard, exhausting battle and all we wanted to give her one day to get her mind off the endless doctors appointments and discouraging news. One day to feel like her happy, social, fun loving self again. So the expectations I set for myself and this party were pretty high. We set out to try to find a venue. On short notice it was next to impossible. Her boyfriend (who was the one who suggested we throw this party in the first place, and who is nothing short of amazing) and I quickly realized that we had no other real option but to host it at our house. Which if you know us, you know we are the village hub for all gatherings and though it is a small house it is equipped with everything we need. Cute backyard- check, tables and chairs- check, every size serving dish/platter, crock-pot, or Nesco imaginable- double check!
So with the venue decided, we set out trying to contact her closest friends which proved to be another tough task. We relied on Facebook and recruited the help of everyone we could to track down contact information on her friends. Her boyfriend even hacked into her phone to sneak phone numbers when she wasn’t looking! All our sleuth work paid off and we had a wonderful group of old friends and family coming to support and celebrate her big day.
Our next order of business was to think how we could minimize germs as much as possible yet make everyone feel welcome and relaxed. With the birthday girl undergoing chemo this was a critical piece to plan. We decided that we needed to ask everyone to wear masks and I needed a lot of hand sanitizer! And to reduce contact on food we wanted everything to be individually wrapped or pre-portioned.
Decorations were to be kept simple but very feminine. My mother in law loves all things sparkly, dainty, and lady like. She is convinced she should have been born to the royal family in England and I kind of agree- she is a lady to the core. I found a simple set of centerpiece decorations in pink sparkly paper that read “60 & Fabulous” on Amazon and decided I could work with that theme- after all she was 60 and pretty fabulous! I printed a few signs to display near the basket of face masks and glued cute labels onto store bought hand sanitizers that encourages spreading love not germs. White table linens, soft pink organza table runners, and pink flowers from our local grocer made our simple backyard look more like an English tea garden setting.
For the food her boyfriend wanted to keep the meal portion very simple. He ordered a variety of pre-wrapped sandwiches that would be delivered the day of the party. This was a huge help and freed me up to focus on the more important aspect of the party- the desert table! Anyone who knows my mother-in-law knows she LOVES sweets! So I knew this was the area I wanted to be a little extra special for her. I ordered adorable plastic desert cups on Amazon that were perfect! Simple strawberry shortcake and chocolate mouse put into these tiny containers somehow made them feel so much fancier. I also made tiny brownie cups topped with peanut butter frosting, mini apple and pumpkin pies that were a huge hit too. In addition to the homemade deserts I added a few store bought items- miniature cream puffs and tiny salted caramel cupcakes rounded out the desert table.
The last task I set out to complete before the party was my favorite. I bought an empty scrapbook and asked her best friend at work to gather birthday wishes from everyone there that couldn’t attend the party on small pieces of paper. I also emailed a few family and friends out of state and asked they email me a message I could print on their behalf. Her boyfriend, my husband and I lovingly chose as many great pictures of her life that we could and pasted them to the empty pages along with all the notes from her friends and coworkers. I laid the book out on the day of the party with pretty pens and stickers and asked the guest also add to the book any well wishes or favorite memories of her.
The day of the party came and my mother-in-law was beyond surprised and kept thanking all of us for such a wonderful birthday. The guests all seemed to have a good time and raved about the food and the cute little details I had so carefully thought through. Yet the days that followed her party I kept asking myself if I had done enough? Had I made it special enough for her? I had wanted it to be perfect. I had wanted it to be larger- grander- more fitting of such a wonderful milestone in her life.
At the end of the day when so much time goes into your events you often can beat yourself up for all the things you wanted or thought should have been done. All the things that didn’t go quite as planned tend to stick in our minds as the host, even though we know the guests never even noticed. It is so easy to be far to critical of ourselves and our efforts trying to create picture perfect events that are posed so perfectly for social media. Real life often isn’t Pinterest worthy. Real life is far more messy, loud, and exhausting. But real life is so much more satisfying, it is filled with so much more joy and love.
This wonderfully small backyard garden party was my sweet mother-in-laws last birthday. She sadly lost her fight to cancer 4 months later. Now looking back I see the pictures we took and see her beautiful smile radiating. She spent that wonderful October day laughing with her favorite people in the warm sunshine. Eating as many sweets as she could and opening more gifts than she thought she deserved. She spent the day showered in love by people near and far and I am so proud to have been a part of it. I am proud to have given her one last birthday party that maybe wasn’t magazine worthy but I know for the day she felt the like royalty she should have been born! I know that everything I did was perfectly enough.
Try not to loose sight of the reason we are hosting these events. It is about the chance to show our friends, family and our own villages just how much spending time together means to us, after all with out them there wouldn’t even be a reason to celebrate!
