Henry is having a birthday party. Which means he needs to make invitations. I'm usually pretty over the top with birthday parties. I have creative invitations, with a cake and decorations, games and party favors that all match the theme. I’ve done rockets, and space exploration, M&Ms, circus, and previously a beach theme before we even dreamed of living at it. Henry’s FBI party was *EPIC.*
Here I've got limited resources to go all out. We can't have a large group of boys in the apartment where we live. Henry wants to seize the opportunity to have his birthday party at the beach anyway.
He wanted to make paper airplanes for his invitations. I thought it was a great idea and got to thinking about how I could print them at the copy center and then fold them into planes. But Henry said, "why can't we just use a marker and write the information on by hand?" Sure, okay. And my mind goes to, “but it’s not polished and impressive, so homemade" "Will the other kids think it's lame?" I'm already wondering about what the standard fare is for birthday parties around here. Will the kids have a good time *just* going to the beach? Do we have to go to a party center? What if the cake is just store bought? How much notice do I need to give them to plan for the date? Can we tactfully request no gifts since we can't take them back on the plane anyway? Or is gift giving already pretty simple (compared to gift exchanging in Utah)?
But it's about Henry. It’s not about impressing people. And he had a great idea to just make paper airplane invitations. So that's what we did.
And I wonder how much simpler the rest of life could be if we didn't always amplify it to meet expectations instead of focusing on what it's really about.
I had a similar experience when my oldest daughter got married. She had her own ideas of what she wanted--and notably there were things that I thought were standard for weddings that she didn't even care about. I realized that weddings sometimes get huge and elaborate beyond reason because the bride plans what she wants and then the mother adds in what she thinks is standard (expected) and generation upon generation things start escalating. Next thing you know we are waiting over a year for the actual wedding because planning it takes so long.
We skipped the printed napkins, the stuffy guest book, and the mile high frosted cake. She wanted angel food cake with fresh berries and whipped cream on the side. When she said she wanted to serve powdered donuts as finger food I bristled, but then I realized--it's her wedding--and that's her favorite food. Let her. (It was a little more uncomfortable when she wanted popsicles to represent her fiancé's favorite food. But we did it!) It was a lovely wedding. I wouldn't change a thing. (At the next daughter's wedding we served her favorite chocolate chip cookies.)
So the lesson is, simplify life and enjoy it! Don’t waste one minute, or one dollar, trying to meet elusive expectations. What people really want is to enjoy the real you.
It was the easiest birthday I've ever done. We went to the beach, they folded paper airplanes. They played in the water, we served watermelon and chips from the fish and chips shop across the street. I made a cake with a runway and mounted a paper airplane coming in for a landing. The candles were the runway lights, that almost set the airplane on fire! The boys had a great time and it made Henry's dream come true!
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