A Socially Distanced Birthday Celebration!

We had loads of laughter and fun yesterday seeing family, friends, neighbors and teachers for the first time in so long.  Millie’s “drive-in” birthday celebration brought smiles and giggles and joy!

The entire day was Millie’s idea!  For her seventh birthday, which falls on Canada Day, we are always in Canada where my family is from.  She typically loves to share her birthday with Canada as it brings a local fireworks show and loads of family that we only see in the summers.  This year we are at home, but she wasn’t going to let this pandemic get in the way of some fun!

Millie requested a dunk tank and asked me to invite her friends to drive-in instead of drive-by.  On the invitation, we asked our guests to come in fifteen minute windows, pull in, hop out and take a stab at dunking the birthday girl. In advance of the big day, I sent text messages to our guests asking if a certain time slot worked.  I tried to schedule a few breaks for Millie throughout the day, one for lunch and and another just in case I needed to pad the time.  The 15 minute slots seemed to work great!  In retrospect, I could have shared a little bit more information with the parents about what to expect when they arrived in advance but, to be honest, I wasn’t really sure how it was going to work out!

We offered them some Dippin’ Dots in to-go containers that come pre-packaged with spoons that are also individually wrapped.  Big brother JR was in charge of wiping down the dunking balls with an anti-bacterial wipe between guests and demonstrating how to dunk Millie.

After each dunking, Millie hopped out and offered each of her guests a gift, a betta fish and food in a bowl that she carefully designed and prepared.  I displayed them in the shade on a table with a new cloth from one of my favorite table linen brands, Summerill & Bishop.

Inspired by our friends, Gracie and Aubrey O’Banion’s amazing pipe-cleaner aquarium, Millie set to work to make her own after consulting with them by text.  She was so excited to show her party decoration to her friends.  All it took was an Amazon order of pipe-cleaners, google eyes, playdoh, fishing wire and some imagination.  We used an old shoe box covered in craft paper as the base.  She had a blast making it and took pride in displaying it on the table.

Our balloon number tradition continued and remains the perfect place for a birthday photo every year!

Thank you to John Cain Sargent for driving in to get a shot of Millie and family!

Here is one of our dear friends McCall starting a successful toss that dunked the birthday girl!  You can head to my Instagram to see the video.

And another shot of a successful dunk, this one by cousin Tobin! You can see in Millie’s face that she knows he is serious about this shot!

A small family dinner to celebrate the birthday included another tradition, this Josef Original “Seven” girl.  I place one of these at her table setting every year since she was a year old and she displays the collection on the shelves in her room. They start at age 1 and continue to 21!   I included some links below if you want to start a collection and even found a complete set that is for sale! They range in price and condition as they are vintage so read the details in the listing.