<p>Planning a (semi) surprise 80th birthday party for my Mom</p>
<p>Need table ideas. Centerpieces, favors???</p>
<p>My Mom and I just went to my nieces bridal shower yesterday. Table had a framed photo and balloons on each. Candy wrappers and a cute personalized card and heart-shaped cookie-cutter.</p>
<p>Other than a vase/flowers /ribbon/balloons all attached, any other ideas?</p>
<p>We will likley go on Shutterfly and make a photo collage.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I love doing anything that involves pictures and memories. </p>
<p>I had a 60th wedding anniversary party for elderly friends and had everyone contribute a picture and a letter (I supplied the paper and asked them to only write on one side) to the couple. I put them all in an album that they could look through at their leisure. When I made the request, I said that all too often we wait until someone is deceased to reflect on what they meant to us. </p>
<p>As for centerpieces, I would try to think of a theme that reflected your mom - cooking, sewing, teaching (small book), etc. and find a small trinket that symbolized that theme tied around a simple vase with flowers.</p>
<p>Just went to birthday party for a neighbor who is ninety. On each table his daughter had placed a framed photo of him at an earlier stage in life. A baby picture, a picture of him beside his first car, a picture of him in uniform, his wedding picture, etc. It was really nice.</p>
<p>for MIL’s 90th. A couple of things we did:
Ordered engraved champagne glasses for everyone and kept lots of extras to toast future birthdays.</p>
<p>Made a brief dvd slide show (set to classical music that she likes) and showed it to the crowd. Pics from when she was a baby up to 90. Lots of great shots. Tears in the audience. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>For Happydad’s grandma’s 80th, I made two bundles of 40 birthday candles tied with pink ribbon to put on her cake. When we began to light them, the wicks were close enough together to ignite on their own. In the photos it looks like we had installed two flame-throwers in the cake.</p>
<p>So, my advice is, don’t do what I did!</p>
<p>One idea that worked for us: get some of those boards that kids use for science fair projects and cover them with photos of the grandma from birth onward. Set the photo displays along one wall where everyone can see and circulate along them.
If you have time and money, print some kind of program with old photos, but even more important, make a slide-show type presentation with music for everyone to see, and then put it on a CD for them.</p>
<p>OK, back to table stuff,
we found cheap vases by the dozen at a craft store, plus votives and ribbons and tulle on big bolts. Lots of table “foo-foo”. Pick a color scheme and go from there.</p>
<p>For my mom’s 80th birthday party seven years ago, I had a roaring twenties party! Everyone shopped Goodwill and came in costume - the pictures are great! Mom’s name is Millie and the invitations were a play off of The Thoroughly Modern Millie. It was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to plan the ninetieth!</p>
<p>My father-in-law celebrated his 80th last year. We didn’t attend, but my brother-in-law got a copy of a baby picture of him and used it on the cake - edible icing. Check with your local bakery. I think they had it done at a grocery store.</p>
<p>I just attended a very nice 80th birthday party. They had several very nice touches.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Each of the grandkids got up and spoke about their grandma. Some were touching, others humorous.</p></li>
<li><p>A TV was set up with a continuous slide show of photos from her life from birth to the present with a musical background. </p></li>
<li><p>Since the lady is a tennis player (yes, at 80), the floral arrangements were in deep vases using tennis balls as the anchors for the flowers. The flowers were yellow which matched the tennis balls.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>When we did my mom’s 75th—favors were homemade giant heart shaped sugar cookies—wrote on them “We love Lois”! Then wrapped them beautifully and placed them at each place setting. Really cute.
We are doing my dad’s 80th this summer—with a cruising theme…invites said…He’s 80 Matey!<br>
My favorite centerpieces are regular old clay pots planted with fresh garden flowers—then wrapped in fabric (if the pot is not too pretty)—you can use whatever you have around…and the greatest thing is that when the party is over—your yard (or your guests if you give them away) looks great!!! One idea…double duty. Love that.</p>
<p>At my MIL’s 80th birthday we played an elaborate game of Jeopardy based on her life. Her two daughters had made cards with all the questions and the attendees were divided into two teams. Questions were along the lines of pet names, how she met FIL, details about hobbies, etc. It was actually quite fun.</p>
<p>Wish your mom a happy birthday from us CCers! :)</p>
<p>I’m going to Calif in a couple of weeks for my dad’s 90th birthday.</p>
<p>I like the Jeopardy idea. WE may steal that idea. (thanks!)</p>
<p>Some really great ideas here. We can all use them.</p>
<p>Trying to come up with a theme, of sorts. My Mom will be 80, works full time, plus 1/2 day on Sat. because she likes it. Don’t even mention the word “retire”.</p>
<p>Somehow “workaholic” and clean freak" won’t work as a theme! </p>
<p>Keep the ideas coming!!</p>
<p>The best thing about the Jeopardy game is that the questions were all over the place so different people from different stages and areas of her life knew the answers. I was surprised that I did better than many actual relatives and it was fun that some of the grandchildren knew answers the rest of us didn’t. My favorite was that a granddaughter knew what MIL said the first time FIL tried to kiss her…“What is, not yet!”</p>
<p>If you like whimsy and centerpieces that are stunning to look at, we saw tall clear, acrylic, square vases filled with pastel jordan almonds on each table with long sticks, about 8, planted in the almonds with pretty little pastel paper flowers on the end.
Also saw ceramic plant pots filled with different color M&Ms with those large pinwheel lolipops planted in them. Looked like little candy pots of flowers. Really stunning and eye catching.
We also played something like jeopardy, but we called it trivia. Instead of having teams,all throughout the evening the dejay or the hostess would throw out a trivia question about the guest of honor, if you were the first to call the answer out correctly, you got a little wrapped gift. (very inexpensive).</p>
<p>Love the Jeopardy/Trivia idea. Will have to think of questions and get prizes. Fun thing to do.</p>
<p>Open gifts at party. I think so. Gives us something to do during a break eating.</p>
<p>Play the music she loves the best. And since you asked about tables/centerpieces, there are some cards now that tell you how much bread cost in the year of her birth, her wedding year, etc. Or headline news events from each year. Fun conversation piece at the table, unless it gets depressing. </p>
<p>Is she a movie fan? If so, maybe postcard=sized printouts of movie stars from her youth might add to your centerpieces. Look them up on IMDB or their Wiki page to print them out.</p>
<p>I was at a lovely shower this week where each gift-giver was called up to hand the gift over AND tell a story TO the gift recipient, remembering that person from earlier times. Everybody learned a lot more about the person by hearing these great stories. The crowd was seated theater-audience style and was in rapt attention. The hostess called up gift-givers one-by-one. Best entertainment ever.</p>
<p>We threw my MIL an 80th last fall. The centerpieces were these lovely round Italian-looking blue and white checkered pots with very bright fall color flowers – very fun looking. There was also a trivia game that we invented where the correct answers spelled a phrase and I think a lovely cardstock with a message on it. We passed out songsheets with broadway tunes where we wrote the lyrics about her and her life. We had pencils with her name and “forever young” on them for people to use and we had beautiful colored stones that played on the colors of the flowers scattered on the tables. We also had little bags of candy for people to take. We did the songs, the puzzle and lots of people spoke interspersed with the songs (her husband sang a version of Sunrise Sunset). We also did a beautiful video show of her life put to great music. It was a great party – my MIL said people talked about if for weeks and they are a very party-going crowd of friends that she runs with. It was also tons of works but there were several of us working on it.</p>
<p>Congratulations and wishing all of you a memorable time!</p>
<p>-At the entrance flowers and an easel holding her favorite picture. You can type or print a message: i.e. Welcoming her to celebrate her 80th Birthday.</p>
<p>-We created a power point from the earliest picture we found. We coordinated with some family members who were glad to review their albums and to give us some pictures of earlier family events. Her favorite music was added in the background…While talking about grandma the oldest daughter started the PP and described her favorite’s moments: Her high school picture, graduation, wedding, pictures of the family, weddings of grandma’s children, welcoming of grandchildren… </p>
<p>-Program ahead who will represent the family to make a toast and talk about “Grandma”
-Order beautiful and colorful flowers or buy plants with flowers and wrap the vase.
-A cake was ordered in her favorite pastel colors.
-We placed a book at the table for all family members and friends to sign and write their B-day messages. She kept the book and love it, later she added pictures of the party!</p>
<p>Wishing all of you a wonderful time in Grandma’s B-day!</p>