Birthday Party Celebrations... 19 December 2009

I organised my Birthday celebrations a week early, due to the fact that my actual Birthday is on Christmas Eve and I couldn't guarantee if any of my friends (albeit my family) would turn up! So, I booked a little pub which had a nice ambience and got things sorted.. well sorted as in, asked very nicely if my colleague could put her hand to designing my invite which she gladly agreed to and even got her Mom to paint a picture of a woman in red and have it scanned into my invite.. very talented family indeed! My theme was 'a touch of red' which I thought worked very well. Next step was to ask my friend Sam to print them for me (for free) which he agreed to do just for me.. they turned out amazing! high gloss on both sides and looked fabulous! Thanks Sam and Sum for your fantastic efforts, much appreciated! Ok, so I then had my invites ready to go, I made a list and proceeded to send them out... all up there were about 60 invites sent out, not bad for a girl from Invercargill I thought!
Once they were done, I needed to focus on the food and beverage requirements and decorations... which again, I had help with, my adorable assistant Denai took over the ordering of the balloons and the cupcakes which was a great help and so really all I did was organise the food platters and the selection of beverages to be served... cosmopolitans were a definite must have!
The night before was my office Xmas Party which Denai and I organised and thank god it was a huge success, as I would have been devastated if it wasn't! Again, Denai was a godsend and I so grateful for all her help on the evening. The reason why I am telling you this is twofold... because this was the same evening that my sister and my two brother-in-laws were flying in from New Zealand for my Birthday celebrations and they were staying practically opposite the venue where we were holding our staff xmas party... and I was hoping to catch up with them perhaps quickly on the night just to say hello.. as it turns out, it didn't eventuate and I had to wait until the following afternoon to see them when they came to our place. Here, I now want to tell you that my youngest brother and his partner were not supposed to be at my party but instead they told me that they could only arrive on my actual birthday and then spend xmas day with us, which I accepted totally and was quite ok with these arrangements. So this is how it goes... knock on the door, answer it, greet my sister, my two brother in laws into the house... we are in the lounge room chatting when there is another knock on the door... which my sister alerted me to and asked me to see who it was.. heading up the hallway, I noticed that the front door was closed which for a moment I thought was odd seeing as we hardly ever close our door during the day.. anyway, I opened the door and to my huge surprise was my brother and his partner standing on the balcony with big smiles... I was in complete shock and couldn't say anything but just kept looking at them and then turning around to look at my sister and my other family..... they even had to ask me if I could let them inside!! Huge, huge surprise!! How lucky was I!! Apparently all the members of my family knew, including my 12yr old nephew who managed to keep it from me!
By now it was getting closer to party time and my other sister and her family arrived from Canberra, my whole family except for my other lovely brother was there to help me celebrate turning 50! though technically I had another few days of being 49 left to enjoy!!
My party turned out fabulous and all my friends and family arrived to help me celebrate a momentus occassion in my life... I am grateful, truly grateful for their love and support.