Party Time

Back when I was a kid, parents tended to drop us off at a party and go away. We’d play party games, and eat “classic” party food. What passes for that I hear you ask, a large amount of food on cocktail sticks, usually cocktail sausages, or a cube of cheese with a bit of pineapple. As well as fairy cakes – little light sponge cakes with bog standard icing and half a glace cherry or sprinkles on top, not the revolting cupcakes with far too sweet, ball of buttercream icing on top that seem to have replaced these in modern times. There was the staple of any party, mini sausage rolls, crisps, chocolate crispy cakes, made with either cornflakes or rice crispies, and top hats – a marshmallow the bottom of which is dipped in chocolate and has a dod of chocolate on the top with a smarties placed on it.

I don’t recall if there were sandwiches, if there were they’d be ham ones and cheese ones. There was always fizzy drinks at a party usually Irn Bru or Cola, it would be one of the few times of the year, when I’d get such tooth rotting delights. Some people had soda streams so there were more exotic fizzy drink flavours. My parents were quite good in that sense, trying to keep me away from large amounts of sugar, I don’t recall anyone ever drinking diet drinks in the 80s, more the early 90s that they started to become more prevalent.

One year for one of the kids birthday’s (probably 8, 9 or 10th?) we hired out a local sports facility who filled the hall with a load of giant inflatables. The kids we invited loved it, some of the adults hung about, which I don’t get, I find other parents unless I’ve met the a few times difficult to talk to, or having overheard their conversations really have no desire to do so.

I was the only adult who had a go on the giant inflatables. I was the ‘cool dad’, the kids seemed to think it was great that an adult would be joining in and having fun too. My thinking was “I’m here for what 90 minutes, I can stand around and watch what’s happening or I can have some fun to pass the time.” I hope, that some of you reading are thinking, that I’m not alone and that you’d have joined in too.

Faces of some of the parents looked like they approved, some wishing they could allow themselves to let go and do something similar, and others not understanding why I was joining in the fun. Being a grown up doesn’t have to be “boring”, you can be responsible and you can have fun. You can dance around in the supermarket and try to get a laugh from your partner. It doesn’t mean you can’t be sensible when you need to be. I think it’s a lost art, being able to have some fun, not care if you’re drawing attention to yourself, as long as it makes you happy.

It was odd afterwards, when we went off to have party food and play some games. The kids were preferring not to have fizzy drinks! They wanted water or fruit juice, they were also more into the savoury food. I couldn’t believe we had top hats left over! I had been forbidden from making cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks, that combination of sweet and savoury would have blown their tiny minds! Changes in schools and education about healthy eating are filtering through.

Or perhaps not, it’s funny how many things change, I mean in back in the day we used to regularly go to Wimpy for a birthday party. Games, burgers and on one occasion tripping up Mr. Wimpy causing several people in the conga chain to fall over. Some people did something similar in McDonalds. This is no longer possible, Wimpy pretty much died off and McDonalds stopped doing parties, and abandoned high streets for retail parks.

I get to see the next wave of party changes riding in over the coming years, as we got a surprise earlier this year and discovered we’re having a baby, so i guess it really is party time!