Our son’s first birthday is coming up, so we’re planning a party. We’ve thrown together several of these by this stage, so hosting won’t be the challenge — finding the guests will.
We have several acquaintances in Atlanta, but few friends. Throw in the fact that several guests usually bail on the day, because of illness, nap overruns, etc, and we might be faced with a small crowd.
When our son is old enough to understand these things, he might ask why there aren’t many other babies clustered around him when he blows out his candles (or attempts to, anyway). Especially if he sees photos of his sister’s first birthday bash.
In London, we were close friends with a couple who owned several pubs. My friend convinced her husband to use an upstairs room at one of them to host a rocking first birthday party for their son and our daughter.
My American friends were appalled when they heard that we were having her party in “a bar.” Of course, there isn’t an exact translation of the British pub concept into American culture.
In London, families take their kids to lunch at their local pubs on weekends. They might even bring their dog. Pubs are more like casual restaurants than bars.
Still, even other Londoners were surprised by the feat. We crammed 20 kids, 30 adults, three inflatable structures, 200 plastic balls, a balloon machine and a very cooperative kids’ entertainer into a 40 person capacity room.
It probably wouldn’t have occurred to us to turn that room (usually rented out for 30th birthday parties, wedding receptions, and the like) into a party room for the under one-set if we had had space to host a party at home.
Neither we, nor the co-host, had a yard, or a room big enough to fit all of the people we wanted to invite.
The irony is, now that we have the space (the yard, the big rooms, the works) we don’t know enough people to fill it (cue violins…).
Luckily, one-year-olds are oblivious to guest lists.
Reverse Culture Shock 