The Best Kind of Party

Pictures of two great birthdays!

Grown-ups have lots of different kinds of parties. Sometimes they have wine and cheese. Sometimes they have nachos and beer. Sometimes they have fancy dinner parties. But I still know what the best kind of party is--a birthday party like I had when I was little.
We invited our friends and sometimes our aunts and uncles and cousins.

We played pin-the-tail on the donkey. Here's how you play. A picture of a donkey is pinned up on a wall or tree. The player holds a picture of a donkey's tail with a pin or (safer) a piece of tape on it. A grown-up ties a blindfold on the player and spins him or her around and then gives a push in the direction of the donkey. The player has to walk over (not touching anything) and pin the tail on the donkey. The one who puts it the closest to where the tail belongs wins the prize.
We also played drop the clothespin in the bottle. You need an old fashioned milk bottle, or at least a bottle with a hole bigger than in the plastic kind. You hold the old fashioned kind of clothespin at your waist and drop it in. The more that get into the bottle, the better your score is. I never got many in the bottle, but I still thought it was fun to try.

The best part of the party was the food. We always had cake, usually chocolate or yellow, with either chocolate or caramel icing. We also had ice cream, sometimes in Dixie Cups
(little cardboard cups) or just from a carton. And we got either lemonade or soft-drinks, a very special treat. There would be little cups with jellybeans or other candy. There were balloons and party favors.
My favorite part of the birthday cake was the frosting. One year when Mommy made caramel frosting, I saved all of it until last while I ate the cake. I thought it would be wonderful to eat it all at once--what a rich, delicious experience. But by the time I was done with the cake, I was so full I couldn't eat any more. I was afraid Mommy would throw away the icing--what a waste. But she was kind and wrapped it up and saved it for me. The next day when I was hungry I got to eat it.

I don't remember very many birthday presents I got. But I remember that when I went to other children's birthday parties, sometime, if Mom was too busy to go shop for a birthday gift, she would make a beautiful card with pictures of flowers and old-English lettering. She would put in a dollar bill, and that was a very good birthday present.

My little brother had some problems with birthdays.
One year when he was very small, our cousin gave him a little wooden baseball bat for his birthday. He liked it, but he also picked it up and almost hit her over the head with it.
When he was three years old, he got very upset when we sang "Happy Birthday". He cried and hit his cake plate with his fork until it broke.
When he was four, his birthday party was a very big family party. He didn't feel very well, and finally Daddy decided to take him up to bed. As he was getting carried away, people said "Happy Birthday!" and he said "Happy Stinky"!

Today some children have their birthday parties at McDonald's or in a movie theater or a swimming pool or skating rink. When I was little, there was one girl in my class who had that kind of birthday parties--one year we went on a hayride, and once we went ice skating. But that was very unusual, and we thought she must be very rich. Her parties were exciting, but they just weren't what you were supposed to do. Ice cream and cake in your own house or backyard--now that's a party!