Birthday Ideas to Celebrate 100 Years
What a milestone!
My Grandmother reached her 100th year birthday this year and what a great celebration we had! But what a headache to organize it. I never realized until I started to do some research just how difficult it is to make a really special day for an extremely old relative.
It is difficult enough to choose a present for them anyway I suppose but buying a nice card from a local shop was near enough impossible and after several trudges around the flea markets and several stints on eBay I had to admit defeat in trying to buy something that came from 'her time'
In the end I settled for some nice colorful picture frames and a lovely scarf with rosebuds on. She found the scarf in her drawer yesterday and said 'did you see the nice scarf that your cousin bought me?' I give up.
Card opening can be exciting
Her birthday begun with opening her cards - the one from Her Royal Majesty being the particular favorite. A good tip here would be to video this event because my Mum has informed me that my Grandmother has relived the moment constantly.
Another tip would be that doing the cards and presents on the same day might be just too much excitement for the old person so we chose to have the party a week later and this worked out really well.
As many relatives as possible were invited to a local hall where a disco had been set up and food provided by many different members of the family. Each family had their own table and name tag. Everyone was greeted at the door with a glass of champagne and a pen to sign the notice board and to leave a message there.
When my Grandmother went into the hall she was greeted by a board which held a huge family tree and it was quite amazing to think that it was all because of her that most of the people were on that board.
But the best idea of all (instigated by my scarf-giving cousins I believe) was that about two weeks before the event everyone had been given a few pages of a photograph album and we were invited to fill them with photographs and to share our memories and anything that might be of some interest to her.
Any useful gift will do
Well needless to say she had a wonderful time. Anyone wondering what to get their 100 year old relative for their birthday needn't worry really. My own Grandmother was happy with everything she received. She received presents such as having a rose named after her with the rosebush for her to plant, various pretty pieces of jewellery, exotic food, chocolates, pretty jars and when all these ideas were used up, the money voucher came in handy.
And the best thing of all? Was the card that I designed, personalised and purchased from an Internet site. 'Ooh she said. If I was 10 years younger I might have had a go at that myself!"
