A Twilight Birthday

One of the challenging aspects of living overseas is being far away from family and friends on important occasions like birthdays and holidays.  Consequently, as a team, we put a great deal of effort into making these occasions just as special or more so than they would be in the States.  We began throwing themed birthday parties for the kids (as in under the age of ten, in case there’s any confusion) several years ago.  Since the kids are forced to celebrate their birthdays with for the most part adults (who nonetheless don’t always act their age), we figured the least we could do was give them an affair to remember complete with themed games and food.  Then, one fateful day, we added a theme to an adult’s birthday party…and that’s been the pattern every since.  Birthday parties have only grown in scale.  We have a designated party planner on the team, which is a necessity considering there are thirteen parties to be planned throughout the year.

This past weekend was our party planner’s birthday extravaganza, so it was up to the rest of us to pull together all the details.  Themes for the party are usually remotely related to the birthday boy/girl, but they also mock that person in a loving way.  My birthday last year was a playing card theme, which was a sarcastic commentary on the fact that the team will never play card games with me.  For Jennifer’s theme this year, we chose Twilight.  She ridiculed the movie the first time she watched it, but has since been whipping through the books.  The theme was a good choice; there were a plenitude of websites giving instructions on how to hold a Twilight party.  And so I welcome you to Forks, China:

We set the mood of the party room with Christmas lights, roses, signs with cheesy quotes and red apples.In the above picture, Rach is getting white glittery eye shadow painted all over her face–in other words, she’s being transformed into a vampire.  (Although technically she should only glisten like diamonds in the sunlight.  Yes, I’ve seen the movie too many times.  I can’t hep the fact that my students adore it.)

One of our old teammates, Michelle, was in town for the party.  We put her sign-making talents to good use.

My personal favorite of the signs is above.  To save you from squinting your eyes in attempts to decipher the small script, it reads, “Edward Cullen: bringing sexy back since 1901.”  The mock Twilight book cover on the door would have been impossible without Daren’s skills in drawing arms.  The red apples on the table are actually imported from Washington…and cost a pretty penny.  Most of the apples sold in China are a combination of yellow and pinkish tones, which just doesn’t cut it for setting a romantic Twilight mood.

The cake, of course, matched the theme.  It was flavored with blood (in other words, it was a red velvet cake), and adorned with “Happy Birthday” written in the Twilight font.

The game for the evening was “pin the apple in Edward’s hands”.  And no, this was not an idea from the party websites.  We came up with that one on our own.  Although we do have a version of this game at a large majority of our parties.  You’d think we’d get better at it…in this shot Wu is directly headed for the kitchen.

In the end Wu corrected his course, and quite a few of us ended up quite close to Edward’s hands.  Not shown in this picture are the apples that ended up on the walls and TV.  We deemed Rach the winner of this contest.  Her prize?  One of the coveted imported Washington apples.

Happy Birthday, Jennifer!  We hope you realize how special you are to us!