We have a December birthday here, too. I’m careful not to mesh Christmas stuff with his birthday unless he specifically asks–like last year, when he wanted to decorate gingerbread cookies at his party. That ornament-decorating party sounds like an excellent way to keep everyone occupied!

Lovely memory!
Oscar’s 50th is coming up in 2010, and he’s already told me he want’s a party, but not a surprise party.
I guess I;d better start planning now!

My dream is that I will have sold a book for a nice sum of money, and can use it to take him and the gang to Scotland or something.

ok i must know – did your dad decorate and put lights on the tree on the roof

The closet to this that I gave one of my daughters was a make-it-yourself pizza party. I had balls of dough ready to smoosh out into circles, sauce, and bowls of every sort of topping I could imagine (no anchovies in my house, though). They were about 12, come to think of it, and they had a ball!

Oh! We had those molds, too. Gosh I hadn’t thought about them in years until you posted. I remember making them.

And my brain is completely “color inside the lines, follow the pattern” so I applaud anyone who can think outside that box!

Thank you so much for jogging that memory!

Rosa’s birthday is right before Halloween, so her parties always have that holiday tie-in. When she was 7 or 8, all of the kids seemed to be having very elaborate birthday parties at “Chuck-E-Cheese” or “the Jungle.” She knew better than to ask for something like that, so she invited all of her friends to bring a stuffed animal. We got out all of our fancy fabric scraps, and the girls made costumes for their stuffed animals. Then they took them around the house “trick-or-treating” with other family members to hand out candy from different corners. One little girl looked at the pile of fabric and trims and said, “Wow, my mom never let me spread fabric and stuff like this all over the WHOLE dining room table!!” Sometimes we have to learn to embrace the differences.

Oh, definitely. *That* is my idea of a good birthday.

What a fun party and a wonderful memory.

How fun! I bet a lot of those guests still have their ornaments and think of you each year…

The year I was seven, my mom threw a party for me where we decorated cookies. Six seven-year-olds, frosting, raisins, chocolate chips, *sprinkles*- I think we all had a good time, but the following year we went to McDonald’s…the frosting and sprinkles reportedly wound up pretty much all over the house!

Your party sounds like it was so much fun. I can almost hear the girls giggling! I bet some, if not all, of them still have their ornaments.

What fun! Love all those memories. Though secretly I kept waiting for the tree to want to topple over with all the plaster ornaments…

That tree top on the roof top? Priceless.

I’m coming to this late, because our computer croaked and I am catching up on my “reading” but I hasten to assure you that candy molds do work fine because you sent us a set once, plus plaster of paris, years ago when it was our year to be gifted by you. (To those not in the family, we have a sibling rotation.) They are put on our tree every year, and though they are small we love them. I have a couple of the originals, too. We each got one back from the ones we had given to our grandparents, when Gram died. We don’t still have the molds, but it was a great project.