¨My epic 24 hour birthday celebration

I have two birthday related goals on my list.

Have the biggest, baddest and best 50th birthday ever!

and

Celebrate my birthday for 24 hours

THE MAIN THING WITH BIRTHDAYS IS THAT IT SHOULD BE SOMETHING THE BIRTHDAY CHILD APPRECIATES. So don't just go on planning an "epic" birthday to someone else, unless you know this person VERY well and are ready to ignore your own personal preferences, opinions and values.

Which means that you cannot just copy this page and do all the things *I* want to do on my birthday! Use this as inspiration.

The theme of my party is "what Halloween would be like if in stead of scary things it's lovely things." Fun, joyous, delightful, enjoyable things. Stars and clouds and unicorns and rainbows. Kittens with pink bows and balloons. Fireworks.
MY favorite things. 
Things that make me happy.
Things that make me smile.
I want people to have fun, good, decent, clean, fun fun, where no-one gets hurt and everyone gets to enjoy things.

24 things to do in 24 hours on my 24th birthday

Now, her list is not something that I could copy straight out, but it's a great idea, and there are a couple of ideas on the list I find appealing.

Breakfast in bed with favorite cartoons

And I want champagne and flowers.

I am not Christian, so meditating Bible quotes is not my thing, and "yoga at sunrise"... I always do that anyway, but to celebrate the rising of the sun on my birthday, yes!

Start the day with a sunrise party! Yes!

Now, sunrise party is not when you party the all night until sunrise, it's to greet the beginning of the special day. Celebrate the fact that sun rises today and creates a "free" and ecologically sound "firework show". I mean, are there better, bigger and more beautiful light shows on sky than sunrise and sundown?

Now, I want some kind of "juice sunrise dance party" thing

"I arrive at ---  to bubbles floating out the front door and a blonde chick wearing a lei around her crown hugging everyone on their way in."

Yes! Bubbles! And leis! Get everyone leid!

Sun rises about 5:15 on my birthday here where I live...but will I be where I live on my 50th birthday? Perhaps I'm on Tahiti. Or Scotland. We'll see. ;-)

All the guests should be in that place at the time of the sunrise, so I suppose I need to arrange it so that they sleep over at my house as if they were holiday guests... and I don't have a house, so I suppose I have to rent a house.

Now, on my "50 before 50 list" there's this:
Rent a vacation house for a week and have friends stay over

Yes, I want to do this! (Maybe not for a week but at least for a weekend. I want to celebrate my 50th birthday the whole weekend!!! (Not really, but as you read this list, you'll notice there is the "birthday eve" and "birthday day", which ends in the early morning hours, so I suppose it takes about 3 days. Friday for people to arrive to the destination, Saturday to celebrate and Sunday to recover :-D
(Suitably enough, my 50th birthday is on Friday :-D Even better, it's the Good Friday... My 50th birthday is on Easter :-D The WHOLE WORLD CELEBRATES MY BIRTHDAY! :-D)
Yeah. It's my birthday so I may be megalomaniac. 

Other "epic" "morning parties" are Christmas morning. So, let's "borrow" some traditions from that day.

Present opening.
Birthdays mean gifts, don't they? And Christmas, too. So why not combine these two, and make the present opening event a personal Christmas! :-D

Now, I would feel bad to gather the whole family together to just sit and watch me open my presents, so I am going to combine this with Tolkien's idea :-D That is, on hobbit birthdays the birthday child gives gifts to the guests. :-D

Maybe we could all gather to my bedroom to enjoy gift opening, breakfast and my favorite cartoons?
Or those who want to.
Nah. I think it's better that everyone can do what ever they like, have a sleep-in or play tourist or what ever. It's not fun to force people to do things they really don't feel like doing just because it's my birthday.

Ok, I'm egocentric and greedy. But I want A LOT OF PRESENTS!!!

I love presents!

I love gift wrapping!

I love good surprises!

I love the feeling that someone has been thinking about you and bothered to get you a gift.

WHAT it is is less important than seeing a pile of gifts in pretty packages. 

It's like surprise eggs. 

It doesn't matter if the thing inside isn't "amazing". 

It doesn't matter if I already have one of them, or it's used or anything. 

I just love gifts.

Birthday gift idea: through the decades

I LOVE this idea! One gift for each decade, something memorable, something that was "so me", then, something specific... and I love those gift tags :-)

I also love the idea of writing to every one who has ever done anything with me (like teachers and coworkers etc.) and ask them for their favorite memory of me, or a thing they liked about me.

I would LOVE that.

50 Things (Not 50 Shades...) Gift Idea

Birthday postcard poster idea

this one is amazing, too!

And this!
Husband Turns 40, Wife Gets Award

"I contacted 40 individuals - friends and family -
and asked them to send  THEIR FAVORITE book to give to Vic for his 40th"

Also, I love gift baskets...

Another USonian Christmas tradition is to give the family a new pajamas so that they all have something new and nice to wear at the gift opening event.

They even have these "Christmas Eve Boxes"!

 So, I am going to give everyone a Birthday Eve Box

Another thing I like about that 24 things on my 24th birthday list is all the RAKs.
I would love to do 50 RAKs to celebrate my 50th birthday.

Now... if I will be renting a vacation home for a weekend at some country place, this might not be the easiest thing to do... So I need to think about this a bit. Perhaps I could arrange something in a city?
I could also support some things that don't require my presence, like buy goats and chickens to people in developing countries, or donate to other good causes. I could make a book of me doing these 50 RAKs and make a book of it and have that book as one of the program points of the party. Or have a picture show :-D

I am going to wear a tiara the whole day

On this list there are a couple of other things I want to do.

Some pampering.
Massage. A healing therapy session, like Rosen therapy or something.  

A Day of Presents
I want 50 presents, and I want to get them delivered every full our of my birthday, a bit like this:

And there will be two gifts in all packages :-D
Wondering about the math? Ok, there's 24 hours in a day. 24 times 2 is 48. How do I get that to 50? You see, the day starts and ends with a gift... that makes it 25 packages.

The exact time of my birth is 17.50, so there will be presents 4.50, 5.50, 6.50, 7.50, 8.50, 9.50, 10.50, 11.50, 12.50, 13.50, 14.50, 15.50, 16.50, 17.50, 18.50, 19.50, 20.50, 21.50, 22.50, 23.50, 0.50, 1.50, 2.50, 3.50 and 4.50
And then I can go and sleep.

No, it doesn't need to be anything amazing and expensive. I don't want diamond rings and Hermés bags and such. If it's all something handmade, or used books, or things from thrift stores etc.

forty gifts in a box

I really love presents :-D

Birthday brunch 

* I want some background music
* I want so "program" - like board games

Birthday scavenger hunt
in style of a hen party - all dressed up, especially me :-D something silly and a tiara and a featherboa. Of course.

30th birthday scavenger hunt

"I also tried to have a number of clues that related to Jeremy’s background and interests. So for example, I got challenges related to D&D, Magic the Gathering, ducks, penguins, Batman, and generally being awesomely goofy. And of course, I created a list of 30 challenges."

Treasure hunt

Epic cake

I just don't know WHEN to serve this... it would be fun at brunch, though, and then available during the rest of the day.

Afternoon Tea

I love tea parties!

Birthday banquet

And I want it to be a 12 course dinner.
And it may take hours, and everything will be things that I love.
And it should be dressed up, like from an Agatha Christie novel.

Ok, so I like food :-D
The thing is that it's only 5 meals, and you don't have to stuff your face. Nothing stops the champagne breakfast in bed to be a light breakfast, like just melon, ham and champagne.
One doesn't need to eat as much as one can at brunch, even when it's princely.
One doesn't need to eat too much at Afternoon Tea. Just a cup or two of tea, a dainty sandwich and a baked delicacy.
And even when there's 12 courses at the meal, they are not "all that can be stuffed on your plate" courses.
Just because there IS food, doesn't mean you must eat it all!
(Or, frankly, ANY of it, because it's MY birthday! :-D)

And after that it's dancing and party games and mingling and lounging and eating more :-D

And drinking, of course. I do want to try some cocktails.
So why not throw in a cocktail party to finish off the day :-D

I mean, there's always some kind of snacks available at a dance/mingling like this. Why not make it a cocktail party? :-D

Besides, we are going to be up all night - it's a 24 hour party! So why not emulate New Year's Eve as well?

I want it to be a masquerade party- so that too is like the early 20th century New Year's Parties.

I also want to do something supernatural, paranormal, new age spiritual, witchy stuff, like having a medium at the party or someone to read hands or cards or so. Shamanic drum journey. Past life regression.

I am a bit... well... uncomfortable, I guess. I know that a lot of my family think these kind of things are stupid, and wouldn't want to participate, and that is kind of planning things for my birthday party I KNOW some of the guests think is not fun. But - it's MY birthday party and *I* think they are VERY interesting, I don't necessarily believe in things like that, but it's interesting.

I want a photobooth, too

It would be lovely to ask the guests to decide what to do, too...
Right now on my list is 24 people - me included - so I think it would be fun to do something each of them think I'd love. Maybe I get lucky and someone picks bungeejumping or skydiving! Now, this might be a bit cumbersome to arrange in a foreign country weekend trip, but where there's a will, there's a way.

Other ideas

* Have a 50 course dinner. Now, you could have it service à la russe, and let it take some 8 hours, but you could do service à la française, and bring it all in at the same time, like a big buffet table.

Or do it like this:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/15/style/tmagazine/endofcuisine.html

* Start the day at midnight like a New Year's Eve party, with fireworks and everything

* use weddings as inspiration - have a wedding for yourself, with amazing dress, flowers, gifts and party

* have a movie night with your favorite movies, appropriate snacks and have the guests dress up accordingly.

* 50th anniversary party ideas - it's your Golden Birthday :-D

* piñata that symbolizes my past life and that is filled with things presenting what I wish for the next 50 years


* sweet 16 or quinceañeras

* have the guests fill a jar with
- things why they love me
- things they think I should have on my bucket list


* have a baby shower but a senior citizen shower - the guests can bring you things that you are going to need or find useful when you are a senior citizen. These gifts could be gag gifts, or real, useful things. At this party, the guests could fill a jar or book with advice for life 50+

* party like it's {birth year}

* http://www.party-ideas-by-a-pro.com/50th-birthday-party-ideas.html

Here's the "24 things I wanted to do on my 24th birthday list" if it happens to get deleted

On January 22, 2013, I made a list of 24 things I wanted to do on my 24th birthday. And I wanted to see if I can do them all in 24 hours.
The entire day was documented with my iphone and my progress was updated live on instagram and facebook.
#1. Meditate on Psalms 24:7
#2. Text message my parents.
#3. Practice yoga at sunrise.
#4. Enjoy breakfast in bed. Pancakes! With Spongebob Squarepants.
#5. Send a special gift to friends who share the same birthday
#6. Clean my room.
#7. Hang out with my favorite designers, Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh.
#8. Bake 24 vegan cookies and give them out to people.
#9. Donate a trash bag's worth of clothes to Goodwill.
#10. Hug 24 People.
#11. Drop 24 cents worth of pennies on the street throughout the day so that someone can pick it up and receive much luck.
#12. Cross the border and get a burrito. (New Jersey)
#13. Play Happy Birthday on my Harmonica
#14. Play with the dogs at the Madison Square Dog Park.
#15. Finish a painting.
#16. Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sit. Sketch.
#17. Make someone laugh.
#18. Go to the children's section at Barnes and Noble and read my favorite childhood stories.
#19. Experience NYC like a tourist.
#20. Give a compliment to a stranger.
#21. Perform a magic trick and blow someone's mind.
#22. Do something spontaneous.
#23. Throw a 'Smores party at school. Invite good people. Stuff my face. Laugh lots.
#24. Make my own birthday cake and blow out the candles. 

Billionaire Birthday Parties are Bonkers