Hello Escritori,
Both my parents have birthdays coming up just a little after Christmas so it’s a bit mad. Dad’s birthday is first, and Mum has a big one in the new year.
It has been a bit of slog from the outset trying to organise Mum’s surprise birthday because Dad is so chill and happy to just foot the bill: that he has left everything to us really. This led to me actually having it out with him about getting all the Chinese whispers to turn into actual communication to get everyone on the same page.
As this was being “had out” in a kind of gently exasperated, “C’mon Dad….” way, Mary 2 and 3 came in and we were actually in the same room, geared towards sorting out the facts. So we’re hosting a party of thirty, at the moment the guest list stands at 27, thankfully a blend of friends and family which is comfortable.
By “comfortable” I mean it’s big enough to probably avoid the people we don’t like. Probably.
This observation does forcibly remind me of the great Fitzgerald, speaking through the vessel of the sassy Jordan Baker: ‘He gives large parties. And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy’. Upon my initial reading I laughed at this, because it seemed to me to be a very neat, witty oxymoron: until I read the explanatory final clause. It is true. It’s always easier to go away into some nice corner in the company of a real friend, than be under the magnifying glass of a small contingent of people you might not like.
Mary 2 will do the invites and last week I went to the patisserie where I got my birthday cake this year and designed the cake with the lovely (genuinely French) French patisserie chef. I did a very brief sketch which we refined. I just believe that my Mum deserves a beautiful showstopper for her special day and I’m willing to pay for it, after personally haggling the chef down.
I also did a reccon mission down at some craft stores to see what could be used as table centres and staging if necessary. This was fun and I hope I get the chance to make these, so there may be content about “Party Business” as another great literary character put it.
Keep scribbling,
~ Pola ~
The Escritorium 
My birthday is on the 28th so I do sympathise with the inconsiderate timings which your parents were born as was I! The majority of my happiness in 1 week though to be honest I have never celebrated New Year, even on Millenium Day. It all seems a bit articificial to me. It would be different if any year was actually better than the previous one but they very rarely, if ever are. I guess with Christmas and Birthday, anything else, even New Year is a bit of a let down. I have given thought to being like The Queen and having a birthday celebration in the summer; thus far the closest I’ve got is to having a small birthday celebration in mid-January and that only because most are away, busy or have over-indulged by the 28th!
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Hello Stephen,
How goes the feast? (lol). What a lovely long comment. I don’t hold it against them at all but it is logistically unfortunate, yes. Silly Capricorns.
I have said before that I prefer to think about the New Year at springtime. Thanks to astronomers the new year is backed up by being a solar truth in terms of orbit, but feels very arbitrary in the general flow of things. I agree with you. Have a very happy birthday though.
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Hi there, the feast or prep work is going well. I think the spring time would be a much better time for New Year, maybe the Equinox. It has always felt very jarring too that many of us are in holiday mode and Christmas drags on for almost a week in one way or the other and then we have New Year which is all so important that we go back to work the next day and are expect to go back at full capacity because it is New Year. I think we should acknowledge New Year to be the arbitrary celebration it is or let us have a more relaxed start back to work the next day or day after lol. Not that either are likely to happen!
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Indeed. I’m all for a New Year in Spring, because Unless you mean “Full Alcoholic Capacity” I’ll doubt you’d get anything but shredding done successfully on your first back at work.
And yes, New Year is arbitrary however the following are valid reasons for its social existence:
1. It’s an excuse to have another party.
2. It keeps card companies and phone companies and general sellers of tat in business.
3. It’s an excuse to buy a new outfit for said party, or to try a rather questionable makeup look for one night only but strangely you don’t mind if there’s evidence that it does – in fact – look terrible.
4. It’s an excuse to stay up late, which people over the age of twenty one should just not do.
5. It is a socially acceptable time to kiss strangers since ANY OTHER DAY of the year it would just be branded as a mild form of assault.
6. It’s a chance to flog the last of the fireworks that weren’t flogged in November AND it’s a very cheap date.
I yield the floor while resting my case.
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I cannot disagree with any of your six points. They are not only precisely why I don’t want anything to do with New Year and I’m sure, precisely why the event seems to get bigger every year!
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Do what I do and sleep right through if you can avoid the sound of fireworks. That seems to be the only practical solution.
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