My career is based in event production and business communications for corporations. My job can be crystallized into one word…production. I have been a planner since high school, when I would plan elaborate parties for my friends, and then in college, when I was in a sorority and planned the fraternity/sorority exchanges. Planning parties became my college major, as I was vastly more talented at party planning than actually attending classes. Now that I am a parent of a child (it’s still weird to say that) I have turned my attention to planning birthday celebrations for my daughter.

I am not a believer in the over-the-top parties, with giant amounts of money spent without consideration of reality. Listen, if that’s your thing for your kids, then go for it, I just choose not to do it for my child. Calling a little girl “Princess” makes me break out in hives, I cannot do it, unless the child is the daughter of Kate Middleton. I believe in moderation, age-appropriate parties, and simple activities that are fun for not just for the birthday person but also for the guests. I’m personally not a fan of licensed character parties either, unless the child really wants it. When I was growing up, family parties were the norm, and that has continued for our Lucy. She turns four in a month.

Her first birthday party was “Lucy in One-derland” and was made up of teacups, Alice in Wonderland decor, spring flowers and butterflies, nothing fancy. At age two her favorite color was orange, so we made that into a theme. “Orange You Two” allowed us to do orange food, orange decor, orange clothes. We had one wall in our house that was orange, and at that age, Lucy liked to hug the wall. I loved serving cheetos and circus peanuts at a party, it cracked me up. Age three brought Lucy into a pink phase, so pink was the theme. We couldn’t come up with something clever for the word pink, so instead our theme was “Wheeeeee, Three!”

I have successfully convinced her that all birthday party themes are color-based instead of character-based, and this year is her golden birthday. Is that a thing where you are? In our family when your birth age is the same as the birth day number, then it is your golden birthday. So this year, on May 4th, Lucy turns four. She’s on board with the idea of a yellow (golden) birthday.

Now we are in the brainstorming party theme mode. So far, we have “Go Four the Gold” or just “Four the Gold!”, but need some other options. Got any ideas? I like puns.