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Birthday Parties

Perhaps the most frequently given type of occasion party, birthday parties usually follow a familiar pattern: Gather, eat, open presents, have cake, leave. Although this pattern is unlikely to change (why fix what isn't broken?), you can certainly liven up familiar traditions by adding your own creative touches to the venue, décor, menu, and activities.

You'll Need
• Ingredients for each of the recipes, as well as tools for preparing and serving menu items
• Picnic blankets (if you don't have picnic blankets, oversized beach towels, reed mats, or regular blankets will also work)
• Picnic baskets
• Ice chests/coolers for cold items
• Birthday candles and lighter or matches
• Balloons or homemade signs
• Picnic game: croquet, badminton, or Scrabble
• Music CDs
• Three wrapped prizes

Birthday Picnic
Although dinner parties, group gatherings at a restaurant, and cocktail parties are quite nice, celebrate with something a little different this year: a birthday picnic. Gather together the birthday girl's closest friends and spend the afternoon lounging in the shade, noshing on delicious food, and relaxing.

Date, Theme, Budget, and Venue
The guest of honor's birthday—If you can't have the party on your guest's actual birthday, ask her which date would be best for her. You'll likely throw the party on the weekend just before or after her special day—a Sunday afternoon would be nice for this picnic.

Simply classy theme—This picnic is a great occasion to bust out the fancy picnic basket your mom gave you last summer. Straw hats, red-and-white-checked picnic blankets, perhaps a game of croquet in the afternoon -- enjoy a lazy afternoon of simple pastimes.

Midrange budget—Plan to spend about $11 or $12 per person for this picnic.

A grassy knoll venue—Depending upon your area's topography, you might host this picnic at a park, the beach, near the lake, in the woods, or even in your own backyard. All you really need is a flat, comfortable area, shade, and access to bathrooms.

Guest List and Invitations
Invite about 15 to 20 people to this party, basing your guest list on the birthday girl's preferences. Ask her who she'd like to attend—friends, family, neighbors, co-workers—and get everyone's phone number and email address. If you have a friend or two whose company you think the birthday girl might enjoy, it's entirely appropriate to invite additional guests.

If you'd like to spring for paper invitations, look for simple cards that suit your theme; you might also look for decorative computer paper at an office supply store and make your own invites.

However, using a web-based application to manage the guest list for this picnic would probably be the easiest, most efficient way to go. You can even customize your electronic invite by uploading an image of the guest of honor.

Menu
Each of these dishes is simple to make and travels well. You can make everything the night before the party, except for the green salad, which you should toss together just before serving (bring the prepared lettuce with the additional ingredients in plastic baggies or small Tupperware containers).

• Appetizers—Herb-Marinated Cheese with baguette slices, chilled artichokes (cook and chill the night before and serve with Cindylicious Aioli)
• Side dishes—Erica's Favorite Salad, Morning Melon Balls, Mediterranean Pasta
• Main course—Gastrointerestinal Disaster
• Dessert—Cookies (Stop by a bakery for an assortment of cookies, and purchase a cupcake to serve as the birthday cake. Don't forget the birthday candle!)
• Beverages—Limoncello

Your vegetarian friends will also enjoy this meal; Mediterranean Pasta makes for a hearty main course.

Décor and Favors
Keep the décor simple: Just the picnic blankets will do; nature will provide the rest of the party decorations. Do remember to guide guests from the parking lot to the picnic site with balloons or homemade signs. If the guest of honor appreciates extravagant touches, consider adding a few streamers and balloons to the picnic site.

Instead of favors, give out prizes for the croquet champions (or whichever game you elect to play). Purchase and wrap inexpensive, gender-neutral gifts (movie tickets, gift cards, candy), and award first, second, and third-place winners.

Plan ahead for a day of outdoor recreation by bringing along a few necessities: sunblock, premoistened towelettes, Benadryl, matches, a first-aid kit, trash bags, insect repellant, and plenty of bottled water.

Music and Entertainment
Bring a boom box and an assortment of CDs the guest of honor would enjoy. If you aren't sure of your friend's tastes, opt for tunes that will set a pleasant, mellow atmosphere, such as these:

• Graceland, Paul Simon
• Revival, Gillian Welsh
• Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman

For entertainment, the birthday guest will have presents to open and a candle to blow out. Either before or after this merriment, host a picnic-appropriate game of some sort, such as croquet, badminton, or even Scrabble. If your guests are not inclined to play, simply give out the prizes arbitrarily—best lip-sync to "Fast Car," longest nap, or the best grass-blade whistler.

Celebrating Different Birthdays
You can easily adapt the picnic idea to almost any birthday celebration, even those for children or the elderly. Of course, you'll want to keep your guests in mind when you choose your picnic site. For example, children will prefer a park with a good playground, and seniors will appreciate picnic tables. Beyond choosing the venue, here are a few more ideas about how to make a birthday celebration special.

Kid Parties
Whether you're celebrating a child's birthday or simply inviting children to your party, you'll need to make special accommodations for the wee ones. Allocate more budget to favors and décor, purchasing kid-friendly decorations and small toys for each child attending. When you select your picnic games, opt for a few games that kids can play, too, such as beanbag tic-tac-toe, Twister, or the ubiquitous Candy Land. Most of the planned menu is kid-friendly, but you'll want to serve something besides Limoncello—pink lemonade, perhaps?

Milestone Birthday Parties
If your guest of honor is celebrating a particularly noteworthy date, such as his 16th, 21st, 30th, 40th, or 60th birthday, you'll want to up the celebration factor and make a slightly bigger to-do of the day. If you'd like, purchase age-appropriate décor; at the bakery, order a cake that reflects the occasion: "Sweet sixteen," "21 and Legal," or "You're All Grown Up." Please, leave the "Over the Hill" themes for someone else; few people enjoy being reminded that they will soon be eligible for a senior-citizen discount.

Surprise Parties A surprise picnic? Why not! Enlist the help of the birthday boy's significant other—perhaps she could take her fellow to the park for a nice walk before an early dinner?—and select a picnic spot that is behind a clump of trees, over a small hill, or otherwise hidden from immediate view. A note about surprise parties: Not as many people like surprises as television would have us believe. Try to get a feel for your friend's preferences, and if you truly believe he would loathe a surprise party, please, don't give him one.