Take a child’s birthday celebration for example. All you need do was clean up your driveway or yard instead of having to look for a special rental venue. There was never any need to think up of party themes such as Star Wars, Ben 10, Spiderman, Fairy Tale, or Fefita Fofonggay! You simply announced that you were going to have a party for so and so child and order balloons that said “Happy Birthday, So and so!”
You cook up all the kiddie favorites like spaghetti, pork barbecue, hotdog on stick, and fried chicken. The cake and ice cream were easily store-bought. No need for complicated caterer’s menu that has all kinds of bar – candy bar, salad bar, ice cream bar and dessert bar. Whoever heard of kids in a bar!
You then piled the food on a table, whistled and the neighborhood kids would come out running. You see, party invitations were optional and were not necessarily covered by the rules of etiquette. A child’s party then was some sort of an open secret that children would whisper about for days until the event itself. Some may come in their party dress but most would just be in their daily wear of t-shirt and shorts. You don’t even have to worry that you needed more chairs because the kids just did not keep still. They would slurp down the pasta and munch on the other party fare while walking around like they were in a cocktail party.
When the young guests were full, you could either allow them to play their own little games which can result in boisterous bickerings or organize something more complicated which guaranteed more bickerings! Favorites during my heyday were the Longest Line and the Newspaper Dance. The boys never wanted to team up with the girls so it was always boys versus girls. The Longest Line was played with each team trying to make a line with items taken from their own clothing. Belts, ribbons, straps, shoelaces, t-shirts, pants, whatever they had! Everything came off! The boys normally won this hands down because by the end of the game, most if not all would be down to their briefs! Girls were very prudent then. You throw in a few pieces of coins as prize and that already sent the boys whooping away!
Taking off every garment to win the Longest Line!
The Newspaper Dance was just that – a dance. Partners needed to dance around a folded newspaper page. When the music stopped, both had to hop on the newspaper. The paper was folded into half then fourth then eight and smaller as the case may be. Partners needed to squeeze themselves into the available paper space. The smarter ones learned to choose smaller partners that they could carry so that they would fit at the end stage of the dance. Again, the coins added an element of joy when winners were declared. You didn’t need to brave the crowd in Divisoria to get the cheapest bargain on giveaways. Those shiny coins were deemed pricier than any cheap plastic toy from China!
The girls preferred to fight it out in the Newspaper Dance!
If you wanted, you can wind down activities with a piñata filled with sweet goodies. Again, no plastic toys. Just candies and little stickers, maybe.
There was never a time cap on the parties. After all, the venue was yours and no rental paid for overtime. The kids usually chose to stay while the food lasted. They chatted, argued, played games by themselves then came back to fill up then played some more. Either your food ran out or the mothers started calling out names in the middle of the street by night fall. Thus, would end another children’s party.
Of course, it only signaled the start of adult get-togethers that usually followed! So - we just simply partied on!
No comments:
Post a Comment