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Celebrating a landmark birthday under lockdown

MrCurry

MrCurry

right after this urgent rest
Maybe this is a silly question, I don’t know, but does anyone have any good ideas for how to make your other half’s birthday really special while stuck at home? My wife is turning 30 and without the opportunity to go away somewhere nice, or have a big party, I’m really worried it’s going to be a damp squib.

Obviously I’m going to decorate the house up a bit with balloons and banners, make breakfast in bed, nice dinner, presents... all the obvious stuff. But something is just nagging away telling me it’s not enough to make it a special, memorable day, as befits a landmark birthday.

So what would you do to give your other half a birthday to remember, under lockdown conditions?
 
Aye, I'm going to be 50 this spring and it looks like I won't be able to celebrate much, if at all. Last year's was a complete washout - early in the first lockdown, couldn't get any prezzies or go anywhere and even getting food shopping for a nice at home meal was horrible. Was really hoping I could do something this year for my 50th but it is looking increasingly unlikely.

Sorry that I cannot be of more help - feeling fairly depressed about it and I understand the difficulty of making anything feel special - no matter what you do (and I am sure you can make/get her a lovely meal and a nice gift etc. and make it as good as it possibly can be!) it is not the same as being able to celebrate with friends and family like you normally would on especially a "big" birthday.
 
If you live in a house rather than a flat, the freehold (or your lease if renting) extends from the centre of the earth into space, so there's plenty of places you can go without leaving your premises. Perhaps a surprise tethered helium balloon flight as you've already specified she likes balloons.
 
Epona said:
Aye, I'm going to be 50 this spring and it looks like I won't be able to celebrate much, if at all. Last year's was a complete washout - early in the first lockdown, couldn't get any prezzies or go anywhere and even getting food shopping for a nice at home meal was horrible. Was really hoping I could do something this year for my 50th but it is looking increasingly unlikely.
Click to expand...

This for me too, 50 in March , last year did nothing as it was the eve of lockdown , and looks like nowt this year again
 
Thanks everyone, you’re making me feel better about it. I’ll do what I can, just feels so inadequate to not be able to make it a bigger occasion. She told me years ago she wanted a big party for her 30th, so maybe we have to defer that one and plan it for next year.

But anyhow, cybershot, the fancy dress theme will be psychedelic pimps and I’ll dial you into the call 8pm prompt. Don’t let me down & thanks for the cracking idea ...!
 
MrCurry said:
Thanks everyone, you’re making me feel better about it. I’ll do what I can, just feels so inadequate to not be able to make it a bigger occasion. She told me years ago she wanted a big party for her 30th, so maybe we have to defer that one and plan it for next year.

But anyhow, cybershot, the fancy dress theme will be psychedelic pimps and I’ll dial you into the call 8pm prompt. Don’t let me down & thanks for the cracking idea ...!
Click to expand...

I only partly jest. A friend did this recently and while it filled me with dread it was actually quite fun, especially as so few of us had been in a room or any kind of chat together in a while.

Maybe just keep it to her close friends (plan for weekend if birthday is midweek) and I’m sure she’ll just love that you even thought of getting her closest friends together for a group chat even if it’s just for an hour or so.

the guys generally left the girls to it after a while. Once the drinks got flowing the all you could hear was the regular sound of women shouting and laughing like they were sat in the corner of the pub!

obviously if they do this regular it won’t have the same effect but for ladies in their 30s who should be pretty savvy with zoom type tech it shouldn’t be too hard to organise. You could probably ask one of them to even set it up so all you need to do is click the link to join.
 
I don't know how much of this would just be boring, but this is what we've been doing if we want to feel like we're doing something special, ie not just sat on the sofa watching crap TV. Balloons and banners is a good shout.

Go for a walk together if you have some nice fields or trees near you.

Pampering, nice bath stuff for a bubble bath, with candles and music. Face masks, exfoliation creams, body cream.

Massage oils to massage each other, or you should just massage her as it's her birthday!

Some restaurants are doing a "cook at home", so they'll drop off food and you just put it in the oven. Have a 3 course restaurant meal, turn off the TV and put some music on.

Get a zoom call in with others obvs.

Entertainers often do live streams, see if anyone you know is planning one for that day. Better on a computer rather than a phone, even better if they're on YouTube and you can screencast to your TV. There's often a sense of interaction and enjoying something together with an audience.

Bake something nice - a big cake, brownies with ice cream.

Any other treat food, ie cheese, pickle and crackers with some wine!

Make up your own cocktails.

Rent a film or find one on your favourite streaming service to watch together.

Crack open the rum and do YouTube karaoke.

Just planning a little day which might look small on paper, but breaking up the monotonous routine can really make a difference in my experience and make it feel special.
 
smmudge said:
I don't know how much of this would just be boring, but this is what we've been doing if we want to feel like we're doing something special, ie not just sat on the sofa watching crap TV. Balloons and banners is a good shout.

Go for a walk together if you have some nice fields or trees near you.

Pampering, nice bath stuff for a bubble bath, with candles and music. Face masks, exfoliation creams, body cream.

Massage oils to massage each other, or you should just massage her as it's her birthday!

Some restaurants are doing a "cook at home", so they'll drop off food and you just put it in the oven. Have a 3 course restaurant meal, turn off the TV and put some music on.

Get a zoom call in with others obvs.

Entertainers often do live streams, see if anyone you know is planning one for that day. Better on a computer rather than a phone, even better if they're on YouTube and you can screencast to your TV. There's often a sense of interaction and enjoying something together with an audience.

Bake something nice - a big cake, brownies with ice cream.

Any other treat food, ie cheese, pickle and crackers with some wine!

Make up your own cocktails.

Rent a film or find one on your favourite streaming service to watch together.

Crack open the rum and do YouTube karaoke.

Just planning a little day which might look small on paper, but breaking up the monotonous routine can really make a difference in my experience and make it feel special.
Click to expand...

Thanks for those awesome ideas! Much appreciated. I’ll be using a few.

Harry Smiles said:
You've changed Urban. 9 replies and no "bone her".

MrCurry "Bone her"
Click to expand...

I want to make her birthday different from a normal day..
 
Boudicca said:
Do you have a garden? If so, how about some fireworks?

I hear them going off quite regularly around here and have realised that they are one of the few ways of marking an occasion left to us at the moment
Click to expand...

Thanks - got a garden but don’t want to upset the neighbours. There was hugging and puffing on the local Facebook group when people let off fireworks at New Years.

sparkybird said:
I've done a few videos for friends who've had big birthdays during this time. I used VidDay | The Group Video Gift Maker
Friends can upload photos and video messages and you can put them all together to make a suprise video. It's been really popular with both the recipients and the messengers. You can share the final video for everyone to see and download it.
Click to expand...

Great idea! I’ll look into it. Thanks
 
It was my 50th a couple of weeks ago, and my wife and daughter did indeed go to town with special breakfast and posh takeaways. My brother brought a cake over and we had a quick socially distanced doorstep chat, but the bit I really enjoyed, despite normally hating both surprises and Zoom/Skype type audiovisual interaction, was that she'd arranged online chats with some of my oldest mates, including a couple who only the day before I'd been moaning about for not keeping in touch more. :DThat really made it for me.
 
It was my partner's 40th at the end of last year. A cafe that was open doing takeaways agreed to help me create a surprise - brought out champagne and balloons and a butty with candles in it when we dropped by for a coffee on a walk. But thankfully this was when you could have a group of six outside so there were a few friends there and was like a mini party. Only being able to meet one person makes it much harder to create a fun day.
 
I had my 50th at the beginning of April last year. It was predictably shite and I can't remember anything at all about the actual day but I'll also never forget my 50th, iyswim! :D

These are good though - online escape rooms - you can play with up to six other households on Zoom or whatever, there's no time limit so you can chat while you're doing it etc and they're half price atm (code is '2021' in case it doesn't show) so only £6.50 :thumbs:

evadere-shop.co.uk

Evadere Virtual Escape Rooms

The Home of Evadere Virtual Escape Room Games Play at home with your friends and family.
evadere-shop.co.uk evadere-shop.co.uk
 
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