¡Feliz cumpleaños señor presidente!
Gesina and I compared notes, we don’t know how much we’ve spent on any individual birthday party for each other. Actually, we do: zero. We’ve never thrown a party for each other.
Do not, however, count birthday meals.
Anders came of (birthday party) age at a weird time for the world and his parents. His fifth birthday party (Spring 2020) was cancelled due to the first lock-downs. His sixth (Spring 2021) was at home; between a global pandemic and a very low risk appetite on Bainbridge, there were no birthdays to be had. His seventh (Spring 2022) was an actual party, but outdoors at a park, with a lot of social distancing. His eighth (Spring 2023) was split between Athens and Rome, but included him getting to drive a check-list of activities and foods (including both hamburgers and pizza).
Would Anders even want a standard party for his ninth birthday?
It turns out, that, yes, he very much would.
Children’s birthday parties, in Costa Rica, at least in our slice of it, are a Thing. They are similar to birthday parties I remember from childhood, consciously checking all the boxes of what constitutes tradition: a large number of children running around, snacks, cake, gift-wrapped presents, take-home goody bags…and piñatas.
Anders has already celebrated his friends’ birthdays at trampoline parks, parkour gyms, and club houses with gigantic inflatable castles. Having a birthday party was not in question, only what type of birthday party.
None of this was low-brow, at least at Anders’s school; Gesina’s open question to a parents (ahem…Moms) WhatsApp chat yielded many suggestions for custom piñata makers and expensive cake bakeries. Between the location, the food, the headcount, the cake, the piñata, and the party favors, Anders’s party would be the most expensive event on our social calendar (to be fair we have a light social calendar) this year.
Gesina proposed some themes and Anders enthusiastically endorsed NINJAS! A color palette was set (red & black) and an invite list confirmed (his entire classroom plus some select others from 3rd grade and the neighborhood). We decided to host it early to avoid Easter week and spring break, and that left “only” the other tasks, starting with location.
Anders’s initial request was to have the party at our club house and pool. Terrified by the thought of having to prevent 25 children from drowning, we looked at other options. How are that trampoline place? Gesina ran the numbers. Hosting at the bounce gym would be $50 PER PERSON, and it still didn’t include the food, goodie bags or piñata. Huh. OK, how about renting out the field by the club house and getting the afterschool parkour instructor to host a ninja course? The price on that was $700 for three hours of three instructors dressed like ninjas. NEXT! Inflatable bounce houses were less than $700, but with the cost of the space rental and the headache of providing shade and seating, and because the club house DOESN’T ALLOW ANY OUTSIDE FOOD (apart from the cake) AT ANY PARTIES, EVEN ON THE FIELD (definitely not still bitter), we came around to the covered pavilion at the pool. And it became a Ninja Pool party.
Going with a ninja theme meant lots of fun items for the goodie bags (thank you, Amazon packages delivered to the USA!) and awesome piñata options. Good piñatas are in high demand, and I had to book my pickup slot a month in advance. The 30-ish Thai man who made the piñata happily gave me Thai restaurant recommendations when I picked up the (super incredibly amazing) piñata and assured me he had to learn Spanish when he moved here too. I immediately overfilled the pinata and had to awkwardly fish out a bunch of candy after confirming the maximum weight with the maker. This makes me wish I had pinatas at my parties as a kid.
Gesina has a long history of making pretty awesome cakes for Anders’ birthday.
Triceratops, volcano, dinosaur cake pics? This year she attempted fondant from scratch and the ninja cake turned out pretty sweet. Just in case it turned out like this NAILED IT pic – cookie monster cupcakes, she also ordered the equivalent of a Costco cake.
80% of friends invited showed up, the piñata was awesome, and the cake tasted good. And no one drowned. All in all, a successful birthday. Exhausting for mom and dad but Anders was happy, which was the goal. Hopefully the next time we have to throw him a party this big, he’s graduating. College.