A Simple Birthday Wish

Little BooBoo’s birthday is approaching and I had planned to host a good old-fashioned backyard birthday party.  It was going to be a relatively modest affair with family, close friends and his little preschool classmates. 

I started the guest list and before I had even finished adding our inner circle of friends and family I was at 42 people.  By the time I added his preschool classmates and their siblings and parents, I was at 80 people.  I didn’t even have 80 people at my wedding!  Even if only half of those invited attended, there was no way 40 people could fit comfortably in our backyard.  I decided we needed to change the venue as our modest birthday party began growing to mammoth proportions.

I estimated the cost for our “small” birthday party to be about $500 conservatively and that didn’t even include gifts.  That’s a lot of money, especially considering Boy Wonder’s birthday follows exactly one month later.  I assumed BooBoo wanted a birthday party.  I mean, he’s turning 3, he loves people and he loves parties but I asked him just to be sure.  Turns out, all BooBoo wanted was a day at the beach for his birthday.  So we are now celebrating his 3rd birthday at the beach with our immediate family.  I plan to bring cupcakes to his preschool and bake him his favorite cake at home.  I now estimate his birthday to cost about $35 plus gifts.

In my heart Little BooBoo’s birthday is worthy of My Super Sweet 16 grandeur but I know birthdays don’t have to be extravagant to be wonderful.  When this party started becoming less about him and more about us I realized I needed to reevaluate.

When I really stopped to think about it, most of my priceless memories came from simple pleasures in the company of extraordinary people. 

Sometimes less really isn’t less at all.