Surprise Birthday Party Chronicles…well; now that the euphoria has started to sink in…I would like to list my top five obstacles to this party planning extravaganza. This will also be a “behind the scenes look” into planning this event and maybe a few words of wisdom for any unsuspecting party planner who wishes to travel down this road. First, a disclaimer…no individuals were harmed during the planning of this party, although there were a few close call. First and foremost, if you are planning surprise parties for someone in another state or country than you are, it is obviously a lot easier, but if you decide to do it for someone in the same zip code, area code, house, etc., please know you will have your work cut out for you. Additionally, if you planning it for middle-aged woman going through menopause with OCD, you WILL need professional help and medication. By the time the day got here, I had begun to experience “womanopause”!! I had this party idea a few months ago and the planning began in earnest a month ago, with a few of her best friends…who kept this a total surprise. Kudos to them… 1. The first obstacle in planning this for birthday girl is that she is just flat out nosey…add OCD to that, anything out of the norm causes alarm. The day I went to sign contract for the party, it took 2 hours to get it all done…finding 2 random hours did not work well for her at all. My cell was blowing up, my kids got phone calls, and local hospitals were contacted, along with local police department. I think I saw a “silver alert” on 495 when I started to drive home. I apologize for putting everyone on edge. 2. The second obstacle is that she was determined to do something special for her birthday, she wanted a party, she wanted to celebrate, so downplaying her birthday while planning her birthday was fine logistically…but the conversations got pretty tense. I mean there were standoffs on more than one occasion…and I finally had to tell her, “look, just because you were born on Christmas, so was Jesus…and that’s who I’m focusing on this year”. That didn’t go over too well, but it did buy me a few more days for planning a party. 3. The third obstacle was that she went into planning for herself, since it was obvious I wasn’t going to do anything for her, so this child goes out and buys tickets to a comedy show in Baltimore the same night as our party. Well, guess who the joke was gonna be on that night, I had already instituted a contingency plan to blow off the comedy show and redirect to our party. It was going to take a big argument…but I was willing to take one for the team. 4. The fourth obstacle was the closer it got to her birthday and the less I seemed to be concerned, she started to get really worried about the “state of the relationship”. A week ago, out of the blue, I get an outlook invitation to a night of “couples counseling” with a list of 20 things we should be doing to keep the focus on the relationship. I obviously accepted the invite. On the way home, I stopped and picked up two bottles of wine. I walk in with my head held low and sit down, as we start alternating reading one suggestion after the other. Before we got started she asked why I had only taken out one wine glass, I said, “I don’t need one, I’m drinking out of the bottle.” 5. The fifth obstacle was just the communication. I had to be a lot less accommodating, which led to me being intentionally a little more argumentative. The small disagreements, which all stemmed from her feeling unappreciated the closer it got to her birthday really had me worried. I finally had to call in reinforcement and have her girls talk her off the ledge more than once. I finally told her to trust me, that her birthday would be epic and monumental. In the end, it was a total success, 3 days later; she’s still beaming over it all. I read the text of the many messages and emails from those who were in on it, the invites, the planners, co-conspirators, friends, etc. When someone tells you their face/jaws are sore from smiling so much, you know that you succeeded. What a wonderful evening, Epic and Monumental sums it up.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 14:12:58 +0000
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