Tonight, when it’s so late it barely even qualifies as today, I’m going to a birthday party!
You guys, I am such a birthday person, probably because my earliest ones were so unremarkable. I only remember three of them: The year I received an umbrella instead of Pink & Pretty Barbie; the time my mom splurged on a Snow White cake with a plastic figurine, candy dwarves and jellybean rocks; and a celebration at Showbiz Pizza that ended with a grubby bucket of vomit, five sobbing children and a Care Bear stained with pepperoni grease.
Nowadays, I go out of my way to make every birthday memorable, whether that means attending trapeze school, riding roller coasters or skydiving in my underwear. And I compile these activities, parties and experiences into a full week of festivities that I call Maggie Gras.
It’s a lot like Mardi Gras but with fewer beads.
I figure the aging part doesn’t matter as much as celebrating the passage of time in an explosively fun way.
My birthday mantra goes something like this:
I believe in the power of wearing a tiara all day long. Even to work. (But why didn’t you call in sick to work?)
I believe in special brunch foods, prepared extra fancy — preferably served in a watermelon bowl.
I believe in enough cheap flowers to blanket the dining room table.
I believe in surprises, thoughtfulness and burning candles in a bowl of soy ice cream.
I believe in gin martinis and frou-frou cocktails.
I believe in all the tiny magic that walks hand in hand with birthdays.
Unfortunately, my birthday obsession spills over to the other important people in my life. My husband — who is decidedly not a birthday person — has reluctantly warmed up to getting a car filled with balloons, heart-shaped pancakes, public serenades, birthday card scavenger hunts, pinatas and the birthday sombrero.
Lucky for him, I balance all this birthday love by hating Christmas and weddings.