There are so many options and ideas for a theme – it is so easy to go overboard. I focused on the first movie – The Sorcerer’s Stone and kept it very light – nothing scary. My goal was to use props and supplies that I already had, and to buy things that could be reused for future party decorations. I ordered most everything from Amazon, and I ordered early – knowing that mail often takes a month or more to get here, and frequently gets lost along the way.
I organized everything by station: Hogwarts Express, The Great Hall, Defense Against the Dark Art class, and Potions class.
I even gave Jackson his Lego gift early, so that he could put it together before the party, and we could use it as a decoration!
Back in December or so, I convinced Jackson to let me plan a Harry Potter birthday party for him. He has been quite against it, but once I convinced him to watch the Sorcerer’s Stone with me, he was all in. We agreed to have a small-ish party at the house, and we set the guest list to 8 kids total.
I started with the invitations. Most invitations are digital these days, but I went old school and created ‘flat card’ paper invitations, with a Hogwarts wax seal for the envelopes. I used 4 Privet Drive font for both invitation and envelope, with black ink for invitations and a green ink for the text of the envelopes. I think they turned out marvelous!
My brother and his daughter have birthdays in early February. I created these adorable birthday cards for them, and Jackson helped me with the scoring tool, so that we could fold them easily and get the in the mail.
I created both cards in Adobe Illustrator, using a template I had set up previously. It is for a 5X7 card, with fold and cut lines. I also bought these cute watercolor woodland animal designs from Creative Market.
Each year, we celebrate the local staff who work at our embassies. The celebrations vary from embassy to embassy, and from year to year. This year, we organized a Thanksgiving lunch for our (400+) colleagues.
I shared my Thanksgiving decorations – pumpkins, leaves, acorns, etc. – which were set out on the serving tables. I also helped to serve lunch. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce, and apple crisp. It was so lovely to see my colleagues, serve them, and let them know that they are appreciated.
We celebrated Halloween on Saturday with a trunk or treat. The cub scouts had a teepee for the ‘trunk’. Jackson shared some plastic spider ‘rings’ with his fellow scouts, he enjoyed a snow cone, and lots of cookies and cupcakes – along with a chicken nugget and a French fry. It was so so so hot. But the veteran trunk or treaters said they were not complaining, as it typically rains! We had so much fun!
Then on Monday we celebrated in our neighborhood with door-to-door trick or treating, American-style. With lots of American candy! After the trick or treating was complete, the kids ran around, and the grown-ups gathered at a neighbor’s place to wrap up the evening with chips and salsa and margaritas. We are already looking forward to next year’s celebrations!
At home, our air freight arrived so we had a few decorations to put out. I taped paper bats to the front window and mixed our fake pumpkins in with the Jack-o-lanterns that we carved.
Party Invitation that I madeHalloween display at the local grocery store
I’ve not heard anything from Jackson’s teacher or homeroom mom about Halloween festivities at school this year – no reminder to wear Halloween costumes and no request for candy. It turns out that Halloween is not celebrated at our school here. No costume parades or parties. Assuming that we would have a party at school, I stocked up on treat bags, bought treats, and made these cute little tags. Since I’m already prepared, I’ll just send in the little treats for the class to take home. Each pack has an American candy, a Halloween sticker, and a Halloween ‘punch’ balloon.
And fortunately, we have other opportunities to celebrate this very American holiday over the next few days…so lots more fun to look forward to!
Daddy turned 80 the week after Josh turned 30, so Mom and I organized a surprise virtual celebration.
We set up the link in Google Meets and tested a few times with Aunt Darlene before we had the invitations finalized.
We pulled out the old photos and picked a few and went to Etsy to create the invitation.
Birthday invitation
We then found a cool poster on Etsy from the same seller.
Party Poster
I then went to Staples.com and had the poster mounted on posterboard. (Unfortunately, there was not option to pick it up at the store.) Delivery was scheduled, but did not arrive in time for the celebration. I might not use them again, or would order farther in advance.
My oldest brother and I went in on a flower and balloon bouquet, so dad would have some decorations in the background of his virtual celebration. I ordered those online through the local florist, and scheduled delivery for his special day. I also put a bag of balloons in my suitcase, as I was likely going to be away for his actual birthday.
Mom and I picked up an apple pie at Sam’s Club and I ordered huge golden 80 candles from Amazon.
For his gift, I ordered a Storyworth subscription. For one year, he will receive weekly prompts to write about his life and memories, and at the end of the year, he will receive a hard bound book with all of his stories printed out.
For the actual event, I had just arrived in Indonesia. I pulled the balloons from my suitcase and inflated them before I called (on Google Meets!) to wish my dad a Happy Birthday. We were chatting away when the other guests started to pop onto the screen! He was so surprised. Everyone chatted and mom pulled out the apple pie and lit the candles. It really was a huge success, and my dad was so happy to be able to celebrate his special day, even with everyone so far away.
Josh turned 30 this year. I decided to make him a ‘this is your life’ video for his birthday.
This was no easy task for someone as technologically challenged as I am.
I rounded up all of my SIM cards and imported them to the computer.
I went through all of my printed photos and scanned about 100 of them. Unfortunately, I did not do a good job at putting dates on the photos…so I did my best to guess the correct order!
I photographed photos that were already pasted into scrapbooks.
Attempting to use the mini dvds from a Sony Handycam, I found that they would not play on the computer. I even ordered an external DVD reader, but I ended up having to download something called VLC Media Player, which was only able to read about half of my discs.
I recently heard of a service called LegacyBox and decided to give them a try. You mail in your old video tapes/reel to reel videos, and they digitize them. I placed my order online, and they sent me a box to put my media into with bar code labels to help keep track of everything sent. I mailed off (from Vilnius) a box of 17 miniature video cassettes, and within a few weeks, I received the digital files. (and a few weeks later, I received my tapes back.)
I shared a few of the files with family. A video of Josh and Jerry when they were around 3-5 years old making (and decorating!) a cake for their great grandma, who is no longer with us, had us laughing and crying!
I had to laugh while watching Josh open a Brittany Spears CASSETTE TAPE, that was in his Easter basket. He was so excited to receive it! (I don’t know that kids these days know what those are!)
And then while watching him at Christmas, I heard the FILM rewind in a 35mm camera that was being used. I can’t remember when I last heard that sound!
After gathering all of my resources, I then had to learn how to use Adobe Premiere Pro to string everything together into a video! I worked on this for over four months, and it was really challenging, but I got it finished in time for his birthday. And it brought him to tears.
Mission accomplished!
Happy 30th Birthday Josh!
photo of a scrapbook pageScreenshot of a video: Baking a cake for Great Grandmaa scanned photo of Josh at Disneyworld!at the Grand CanyonRafting in NepalSkiing in ItalyPremiere Pro! (learning this was HARD – but I did it!)
