One of my friends is getting "fixed", so we suggested a "no-baby" shower to celebrate. I suggested a uterus shaped piñata. We also celebrate one friend's divorce anniversary every year. (It was a long time coming and a very good day)
I had a "no babies ever" shower after my sterlization. Games included pictionary of reasons why I didn't want kids, people guessing the childfree celebrity taped on their back, variation of pin tail on donkey but cut the tubes with a scalpel, and a "cats not kids" cake!
We recently had a "childhood party" for a friend who is not from the same country as the rest of us, to show them what our childhood parties were like. The typical games played, the food eaten etc.
We just threw a party for my friend who got a preventative dpuble mastectomy called "Thanks for the Mammaries" we had so many boob themed games and foods and did a slideshow, had an altar, did diy breast casts, and jeopardy!
Give it a name! Reference it like you would a pet! Then surprise everyone as they arrive with who your new pal is. (Maybe this isn't possible, because I know bidet people sometimes get excited about it, but imagine how funny it would be! One of my friends is a bidet person, and she is biding her time until she can get one)
I host a potluck party after American thanksgiving, before Christmas for friends old and new to make sure we can celebrate friends in the holiday season. It’s 0 obligation to actually bring food, but everyone always does. We make signature cocktails, listen to good music, hang out. It’s a great time 😊
In my studio we have an "end of your tapestry" party called loom fall (tombée de métier in french so the translation isn't great but you get the idea). Basically when someone in the tapestry studio is done with a hand woven tapestry that took up months, they invite the ones they love and all the studio to watch them cut it off the loom and they receive flowers and we have drinks and snacks and present our creation to the world
We got a secondhand microwave, and discovered that it was about to turn 40, so we organised a party for it where everyone brought microwavable foods (and I made cute little biscuits shaped like microwave with cute little boiled lolly window panes) 🎉🎉🎉 That's obviously not a personal milestone, but fun to celebrate an object that wasn't built with planned obsolescence
It's not quite a party per say, but for over 15 years, or maybe it's 20 my mom has been organizing a coffee day where she invites all her friends over on the first Friday of the month and everyone brings food and they catch up and drink coffee and laugh! What's extra amazing is that sometimes there are themes, like one time it was that everyone was supposed to bring things they needed to iron so it was Ironing Day! And the themes were endless and quite silly but always fun
What uncanny timing: I was just thinking last week that I really want to throw or be thrown a "heroic survivor of seven years as a single woman" party, because being single in your fifties is often fascinating and lovely but just as often really hard and lonely, and I want that recognized. Also, shoulda totally thrown myself an IUD removal party, 'cause that was ROUGH.
The abuse survivor and 7 year thing is a good one. I got haircuts scheduled together for my friend and I once. It was the cut which would remove the last of her hair that she’d had for over 7 years and the last part of her that he would have touched. The stylists seemed so happy to be involved with that one.
Not a party, but as a person on the aromantic spectrum I really like to celebrate friendship anniversaries the way people would celebrate an anniversary in a romantic relationships
My housemates and I celebrate "Hydrological New Year". It's every year on the first of April to celebrate that the yearly ground water levels get set to zero in the national models (two of the housemates study hydrology). We have a big dinner with water-themed foods, think watercress, watermelon, iceberg lettuce, seaweed pasta, etc. All drinks are clear, so clear sodas and alcohols (or water haha). We all dress in blue clothes and decorate with blue items. Countdown at midnight with champagne is of course included. This year it was even raining at midnight, so dance party in the rain was included!
me and my friends have quarterly seasonal banquets, summer solstice, spring equinox, winter solstice, it's a lot of fun, and we're having a spring equinox banquet tomorrow
I've had a very shitty start to my 30s (end of an 8 year relationship due to cheating) so have decided to throw myself a 30.5 birthday to "restart" my 30s and I can't wait! I'm getting all of my favourite people together to celebrate getting through this awful time. It's going to feel special to look around and see all the people who have supported me through this
My husband and I celebrated an odd little relationship milestone, we called it halvies and it was the date we had each know each other for half of our lives. I think that's a fun one and doesn't have to be with a romantic partner, it could celebrate any relationship that you have had, although it does get trickier as you get older.
My 10'000 days of being alive anniversary is coming up! and me and my fiancée are going to drive down to the beach and spend the day eating a nice picnic and searching for solar powered sea slugs in the rockpools :) - 10000 days falls somewhere in your 26th year - I also have calendar reminders for 15,20 and 25'000 haha but I plan on doing something every thousand - They're silly arbitrary milestones that fall on random days, but they feel particularly powerful as someone that didn't plan on living that long 10 years ago and has since gotten better and wants to stick around - for picnics and sea slugs and hanging out with my favourite person and the feeling of swimming in an ocean so big and so cold that it's impossible to notice how tiny and yet wonderfully-spitefully alive you are 💕
I was like "damn all my parties are so tame compared to these awesome suggestions" and then i remembered i had a little "yey my fingernail grew back" celebration after i accidentally showed a spaghetti under it :'D Loved this video, stealing all the ideas
It's not a party, but when my husband and I paid off our house we went out for a very fancy dinner and indulged as we hadn't in years. Then we went back into debt because maintenance on a house is damn expensive. But it'll get paid off again soon.
A house is a neverending cyclenof repairs and refurbishments. But it's fun and it's all yours so it's good to spend that money. Better than paying a landlord for their yacht
This video is coming at a crazy time for me! I recently realized that I have never really celebrated any of my milestones... those being: -graduating highschool - quitting drugs - quitting smoking - getting out of 2 abusive relationships - Getting accepted into art university despire waiting 4 years after highschool - Selling my art - Moving out of my toxic parents house _ and many more~ And I decided to throw a big celebration bonfire at the beach to commemorate al of these things with my closest friends! I think everyone reading this should try it out too
I got diagnosed with ASD last month after a really bad case of burn out and I'm moving next week, so now I want to organize a housewarming/'yay I'm autistic!'/'thank god this super intense period of my life is over' party! ✨ Which means I'll probably just invite my 3 friends for 2 hours and then spend the rest of the day under my weighted blanket hahah 😅
I'm a musician/producer and I advocate strongly for "release parties". Not listening parties like the ones that are held by the industry, but a get-together to celebrate that the record/single/music video is now out there. I got the idea because, if you don't gather, you'll be just scrolling and refreshing the page to check if people liked it and left comments, and it gets really depressing. It really sucks when you completed something extremely time-consuming and you get no feedback, so avoiding that and spending time with the people that helped you complete the task is the best plan for "release day".
I’m having to have a hysterectomy in a few months time and you best believe I’ll be having a uterus eviction party ! I also celebrate my name change day every year ❤
I work in a school and people usually bring in cakes etc for the staff room on birthdays. One of my colleagues brings in cakes every year on her anniversary of being cancer free!
This video has made me realise how much I’m mourning a lack of celebration in my life. I have had a chronic illness for over a decade, and have been mostly housebound for all of this time. All of the usual parties have passed me by, but also I don’t feel an illness anniversary is anything to celebrate, and haven’t got a satisfying diagnosis. It’s nice to recognise that I feel a loss because there IS one xx
My housemate and I do a silly little powerpoint presentation of the month's highlights/lowlights/memes to each other just to celebrate making it through the month - it gets unhinged but it's also so wholesome
I think something interesting about this idea/ conversation is it mixes a bunch of different scales of party. Like, for most people, even if they get married more than once, a wedding is thought of and planned for as a life-disrupting once-in-a-lifetime event. A baby shower is something that might happen a handful of times in a persons life. An annual Christmas or birthday party happens every year, or is maybe once per decade (on the 'big' birthdays). I think it would be helpful to break these ideas out by that scale - like, a Phen do is a wedding scale event, because no one is expecting you to get married ever again. Depending on life-stage, a house warming might be equivalent to a shower, or it might be equivalent to a birthday. A lot of these ideas seem annual, which is great, but different from the sheer scale of a wedding or wedding equivalent. I think we need a mix of all of them! A friend of mine, who will likely get married one day, threw a HUGE party with a venue and catering and a fancy outfit for her siyum on shas (aka, she finished spending 7.5 years learning the entire talmud). She put a TON of money and work into it - and that's what made it as special as something like a wedding. It was resource intensive and unlikely to be repeated in her lifetime.
January is dull and dark (we're in Scotland) and miserable as everyone's broke post Christmas. So my friend started a Glittertastic house party on the last weekend in Jan for her female friends (I think they started about 2002). Wear sperkles (clothing or makeup or arrive with no sparkle if you want). She decorated her flat with the same glitter curtains for years. Everyone brought drink and treats, and it felt like (even though we had Feb and Mar to go) we were coming out of winter, out of the depression of it. The party evolved, people moved, she now lives too far out for everyone to get to hers. So now it's a more civilised affair, we had a long lunch this year, and everyone wore sparkles that we dont normally get to wear. I dont think anyone needed to be poured into a taxi like the old days, but it's such a joyous celebration of friendship and the women in her life, and it's so good to catch up with everyone.
For my 30th birthday, my parents and siblings all got me a full set of matching dishes (mugs, bowls, large plates, small plates x8). I knew by then that I never wanted to get married (aro/ace though I wasn't using those terms back then). Before that I'd had a mix of single dishes, a few bits that had been my granny's etc. It wasn't the actual dishes themselves, but just the recognition that as a "real adult" I deserved to have nice things (and never would have bought them for myself). This is also good inspo for the fact that I should just throw myself a big party - my 40th birthday and moving into my current apartment were both during peak panini season, and I just got a massive promotion at work. All things worthy of having some friends around for some wine and appetizers at least!
When I was really struggling with not having enough on my social calendar, and I wasn't in a state where I could go make more things happen, I started looking up national food days, eating those foods on the day and making it a little bit special. It was really just for myself, and sometimes it was foods I might have eaten anyway, but I really liked that. I am in a space where I can do a bit more now and I have a big birthday party planned just prancing round a park with friends because I don't have the budget for a venue
I had a hysterectomy ~6 years ago, so I have a "Yeet-iversary" every year. It's not much (I usually just tag it on to Halloween), but I make Dirty Shirley jello shots for a short toast.
In Romania, everybody has a PhD party. Some even have two PhD parties. One more formal with the profesor, thesis coordinators, family and friends and one only with family and friens😊
I have noticed a bit of a trend of people sharing videos of their silly or interesting parties and my favourite one was of a group of people in their mid twenties getting together and sharing a presentation of what their jobs or schooling is about. I love that because I can relate to the feeling of having no idea what your friends are doing
We didn’t manage to actually do it this year because of personal stuff going on, but my roommates and I talked about throwing an Ides of March party! Caesar salads, finger foods stabbed through with mini swords, dramatic speeches, the works
This is literally a sex and the city episode. It's called "a woman's right to shoes" - carrie "marries" herself to prove a point to her judgy married friend who refuses to replace her manolo blahnik shoes that get stolen at her baby shower. Great episode.
Can we talk about the resentment you start to feel about gifts? I love giving gifts, far more than I do receiving them. I know I'm hard to shop for - I read books in English while living in a non English speaking country, I have hobbies that require gear that people who don't do the hobby won't know about or that are "big ticket items" that you have to save up for and also can't really surprise someone with because it's hard to get their personal preferences right without asking (say a backpacking tent, sewing machine, rock climbing rope...), I'm known for buying everything for myself second hand... I truly enjoy hunting for the perfect thing, or making it, taking mental notes of people's favorite colors and the things they share that might be gift ideas. However in my group of 6 best friends, I have spent literally hundreds, (often for group gifts too, because I spend less money on a hand knit gift than a group "spa day gift card" gift) on gifts these past few years - there have been three housewarming, two house-buyings, three weddings, a civil union, bachelorettes, four babies (gender reveals AND baby showers...). On top of this, birthday gifts! My friends who own houses host birthday parties. Therefore, I give birthday gifts. Meanwhile, I live in a studio. I cannot invite even my 6 closest friends for a birthday party at my place anymore, like when we were students. I do not have the space for everyone and their babies. Parties now require at least a spare bedroom with multiple playpens/fold up cribs for naps. And even if I asked them to find childcare and not bring the babies, now that we are no longer students, people are less willing to sit in a hammock/beanbag, sofabed, setup in a studio, sit down dinner parties in an actual living room are the norm? Going out is harder with multiple kids, too. And I don't earn enough to rent out a place for an event. As a result, I've been given a grand total of zero gifts in the past 5 years, while giving gifts each year to everyone, sometimes several times per year. I have a friend in a similar situation as me and when I noticed I decided to also start making sure she got gifts. I don't know... I don't want to be resentful and in a way I'm not, especially when I give a gift that's my idea, but being roped into yet another group gift time after time is starting to be frustrating. And it's hard to tell them, because I also don't want to be given something I don't have use for just for the sake of it? Like. Can anyone relate?
That sounds cruddy and I’m sorry. I don’t have friends coz they kinda had kids and drifted off. Maybe you are your friend in a similar could hang out a bit more just you two? They might appreciate it too? Just a thought
I like the thought of a party where everyone brings that one craft project they've been neglecting for a while along to finish - it's kind of like body doubling in that you've probably built it up in your head as this obligation, but it becomes fun to tackle in a supportive atmosphere where everyone else has a Guilt Scarf or Forever Cardigan or whatever that they just want to see done.
Our family essentially use any excuse for a themed celebration- our cutest is my mums “Jigsaw Weekender” in which she has an open house to invite whoever wishes to come and contribute towards a jigsaw over a weekend. She’s just precious like that 🥹
Me and my housemate had a (small scale) Jane the Virgin final episode party after spending the past year and a half rewatching the entire series. Everyone dressed up, we took our own glam bot pics, there were red carpet interviews and of course, the final episode viewing
I love this so much as a non-wedding, non-babies, baggage around birthdays person! Definitely on board with celebrating new appliances/furniture, especially if it's after the effort of assembling flatpack or getting a freecycle find home without a car 🙃
This Saturday (5/5, or 5/5 if you're not in the US) is the 19th anniversary of me being cancer-free for the first time*! I'm going out for a fancy tea with my husband and a dear friend to celebrate. *I had a perfect streak for sixteen years but then in 2021 I ended up getting it again so now I have two cancer-free anniversaries.
I just got engaged, and I fully support this message. Looking at you, grandma who only makes and gives blankets as a gift for marriages and babies. Some things that I think would be a great reason to celebrate that are on par with a wedding in significance: 1. Getting your dream job, or getting out of a toxic job. 2. Moving into your first apartment without roommates 3. Paying off a a big debt, like student debt in the US. 4. Getting a dog or a cat. (How cute would a dog baby shower be?) 5. A non-romantic commitment ceremony, like my 2 friends that have been best friends since middle school and roommates for 10 years and share resources like a family. They should totally get dressed up in fancy dresses or tuxes and make everyone listen to their commitments and what they like about each other.
I once told my best friend that I was too anxious to invite people to my birthday party because I always feel responsible for everyone's fun and end up just feeling awkward and stressed out. So now it's been 4 years since I last organized my birthday party, and every year my best friend plans out a surprise party so that I don't have to feel responsible for people having fun (since it's technically not my party, it's not my problem!) In return, I am in charge of her birthday party, it's a lot of fun ❤
OMG this is great timing. My dog recently was attacked (on a public holiday no less) and we're desperately waiting for his stitches to come out without breaking early and the attacker's owner to pay the vet bills. And my partner recently got a new video game console, so we we're thinking of having a play party anyways. So we can have a 'the boy is fine!' Party with games!
My friend and I have birthdays in the same week, and we both agreed that we don't really like loud celebrations with lots of people getting drunk, so we've just had a combined birthday High Tea party. We did an orgy of baking cake and biscuits the day before, baked scones the morning of, and our guests (many of whom have food issues) were asked to bring a plate of sandwiches or savouries to share, in lieu of birthday presents. We borrowed a lot of card tables and chairs, and had fun adapting various "big fabric things" to cover them - table cloths, saris, scarves, short lengths of fabric from the stash, etc. Everyone brought their own fancy tea cup, saucer and small plate, and we had 9 different types of tea, 9 tea pots, cow and oat milk in ceramic jugs, jam and cream in the extra sugar bowls (from multiple matched tea sets) and different card games like Uno for people to play if they wanted. I did a run around local OpShops to get teaspoons, cake forks and some spare ceramic bread-and-butter plates for people who didn't have a plate to match their cup and saucer. No disposables, people were each given a paper bag made from re-used gift wrapping paper (lots of it left from Christmas) to take home the excess food and we had a ball. It ran from midday to 5pm, and we had everything cleared away, washed and packed up by 6. It was wonderful.
A few years ago my brother's godmother threw herself a retirement party after being a teacher for over 30 years. It was so cool! I would also love "vacation parties", where you pretend to go on holiday together for a day and therefore recreate a destination at someone's place, including music, activities and of course FOOD!
I immediately was reminded of an episode of Sex and the City, where Carrie's shoes get stolen from a friends apartment, and there's this whole thing about how the shoes are too expensive for the homeowner to replace and she has kids, and the girls have a talk about it, about how birthdays don't count because everyone has them, but as a single/child-free person, there are no occasions to be celebrated or receive gifts. Because it was Carrie talking about it, I get the ick, because she's so selfish, and thought it was a silly a thing she wanted, however, reframing the conversation as it is being done, and coming from a person real person I respect, I love this. This is great.
I'm literally going to a party tomorrow to celebrate a friend leaving her horrible job and I'm so excited! I love an excuse to celebrate, will definitely be taking notes from this video 📝
The credit card debt free party actually sounds amazing (speaking as an artist, I really love the idea of wearing clothes in the colors of the card company) BTW this outfit Leena...I'm LIVING for it.
Me and my best friend had an 18th Friend-iversary, when our friendship "turned 18", it was 18th themed with cheap typical teenager alcohol, everyone had to bring a "note from their parents" saying they're allowed to drink, and we had 18th sashes It was so fun and lovely, we even made speeches for each other it was just super wholesome :)
Yep, I’m getting right to the age where friends are announcing engagements, weddings, babies, building houses etc. left right and centre… and I know I’m never going to get married nor have kids, and I work in ~the arts~ so my prospects of home ownership are practically non-existent compared to my friends and their partners with big shot careers. Graduated from uni recently, and have not been celebrated beyond a few “congratulations” on my own Instagram post, but I suppose that’s to be expected in our misogynistic, heteronormative, and family centred world 🙄
These are all wonderful ideas and I just want to throw out a lifeline for anyone else overcome by sadness because they can't do any of these because no one would come. Loneliness sucks!
I just finished a really nice oversized crochet hoodie for my sister. It took me over a month and it was a pain in the arse to make all the lemon Granny Squares. At my 25th birthday, my Grandpa and I celebrated our 100th birthday, because his 75th was three days earlier. We were at a restaurant with the whole family and it was so fun.
My friend group has begun celebrating our dear friend’s Bird-iversary, her anniversary of beginning her bird watching hobby. We celebrate by making bird crafts, watching weird bird documentaries, and spending time in nature. Her passion has kindled our own passions for birds and this shared enthusiasm has started being incorporated into other celebrations. For example, this year on Super Bowl Sunday (none of us care much about sports), we are celebrating Superb Owls and making PowerPoints to share facts about our favorite birds.
This is giving me a cool idea - I'm currently long term unemployed because of a chronic illness, but I'm veeeery slooooowly getting better and I've begun to miss being able to work. So I think the day I'm well enough to enter either the workforce or some kind of formal education again I will throw a big party to celebrate! I don't know if I'll ever be able to work full-time again, but doing some work within a community nourishes the soul and that's the part I'm going to celebrate when I get there.
Love the spirit and ideas. Me and a few friends have been trying to do this. However the problem is getting the commitment and prioritisation from people. Everyone is busy and tired. If it's a marriage, new baby, or funeral, as they are perceived as life-changing, or really life/death situations and, importantly, "one time things", people will prioritise attending. Anything that is recurrent, like any type of birthday, will immediately get a higher percentage of "I will go next year". That's why even tho celebrating your birthday is common place, but most often it doesn't get everyone you love in the room. And the legitimacy that those celebrations have at the society level also impact people's attendance for pratical reasons. Request a day for your best friend marriage, and most likely your time off will be approved. Request a day to celebrate Emma Goldman Day, and I doubt your boss will take it as seriously. And same for asking about co-organization efforts. I may ask. But if we ask a friend to organize us something for our marriage, that is perceived as being worth the additional effort on her already super packed life. If I request her to make a cake for my cat gender reveal party, that will not get as much priority in her to do list and so when she accesses her limited resources, it will likely fall into the "I can't sorry". It's not so much about finding reasons and acknowledging milestones, but about showing to people why something is AS important and AS life changing as a marriage, new child or death.
I celebrated my Phd with a PhDone party. I had there my parents and many friends and it was amazing. I don't have 'milestones' in sight, but I was toying with the idea to celebrate my 10 years emigration party and this video convinced me to actually do it 🎉
Idea for celebration: the days I got my Bachelor/Masters degrees. The day I moved into a new city and had to build another community around me because I didn't know anyone around. The day I will send my finished edited book to publishers. The day I will "graduate" therapy by not needing it on a regular scheduled way anymore. All great reasons to celebrate!
I had an aunt celebrations lunch, where I invited all my aunts over. Was lovely and they appreciated it ❤. I also invited people over on winter solstice year, cooked a leg of lamb and combined it with celebrating my new sofa. 🛋️ I climbed mount snowden 3 years after open heart surgery and raised money for British heart foundation. Called it my heartivesarry. We need to celebrate life and I’ve been happy to share and be indulged by others.
Me and my friends had a talent show where we all came up with a performance to show one another, I did a puppet show, there was stand up, a short film, magic and a song! We also did a show and tell which ranged from favourite childhood toys to collections of objects to one friend building an electric toothbrush (a normal toothbrush on the end of a stick that he had engineered to move back and forth)
I think a leaving a toxic situationship party would be a great way to get closure on what can be a very confusing time - and a way to make sure you don’t go back!
I want to have a party once I get certified for Peer support. I was thinking everyone would bring their favorite Healthy coping mechanism (like art supplies for drawing or fidget toys) and we would swap them as gifts like a Secret Santa thing.
We recently threw a new job party for my husband when he got a job he'd been trying for over a year to get. We like to celebrate the "little" wins whenever we can because it feels so good to acknowledge that progress is being made and we're doing something with our lives.
A friend of mine had a Diagnosis Reveal Party, where they, like at a ~gender reveal party~, had games related to guessing what neurodivergence/neurodivergencies they had been diagnosed with. It was amazing!
dropped out of university after getting my bachelor's degree in the history of arts to take care of myself, get back in touch with my creative self and figure out what i want to do in life, my close family threw me a lil party to celebrate this (hard to make) decision, we all ate cake and did crafts for the day. It felt good to be recognized for taking a decision for my mental health and not for an academic achievement !
Wow, I really needed to hear the example from Instagram where the friend interviewed and got her dream job but then rejected it because of the bad vibes and her friend then CELEBRATED HER for CHOOSING HERSELF instead of a toxic workplace environment!!! I am going through the same thing rn, where I got my dream job but I feel like I should reject because the vibes from the interview and process have not been good... I was going back and forth, leaning towards saying no, and I feel like this video was a sign (sounds corny but feels true) - Thank you!!!!!! Really helped me listen to my values and gut ❤✨
The timing of this video is impeccable. I just returned yesterday from Cartagena, Colombia where my friend had "A Carty Party" for his 30th birthday aka Dirty 30. He got 40 people to travel there for five days. We went in a mud volcano as well as sailed on a pirate ship. It's his second international celebration with a big group of friends. I was so glad to finally be able to attend and I'll never forget the memories we made. Thinking outside of chrononormativity is so refreshing. I love all of these ideas and attending my friend's birthday party really opened my eyes that anything is possible.
I've just discovered that my chronic fatigue, dysautonomia, and thyroid problems are all due to an unknown soy intolerance. So I have to cook almost everything thing from scratch, but honestly, every time I do something I couldn't do before (which is most things) feels like a celebration to me.
My mum always does the yearly news letter. As for me since I've immigrated to a new country and all of my friends are from different countries we tend to celebrate each others tradtions. I'm Canadian so I host Thanksgiving/ Friendsgiving together, we do Swedish Midsommar, Quizmas (a made up tradition where we make a christmas themed quiz), the list goes on.
One of my friends threw a Valentine's day party a few years ago. Everyone was encouraged to dress as if it was a wedding. We had someone come as the "photographer", someone dressed as a bishop, many people in fancy clothes. I drew hearts on my face. Of course there was a bride&bride. Heart shaped cupcakes
Love this!! I’ll be having a kidney transplant in the next few years and this has inspired me to throw a party after the operation (ft. a kidney shaped cake, balloons etc!)
There's a sex and the city episode about this, where Carrie realises how much she's spent on celebrating other people's life accomplishments ( e.i. marriage and babies) and she ( single and childless) never gets celebrated. She ends up getting engaged to herself and receives the corresponding acknowledgement😊
Aww. Yay. I've been looking forward to this video. One of the examples is from me. YAY. I fully believe in celebrating everyone as much as possible. I also have a "just cos" date (22 of the month) and I send something to a person I haven't messaged that month.
Next Monday is 5 years since I graduated college and for reasons I couldn't celebrate at the time. I'm going to celebrate my college graduation this weekend!
I had a graduation party at a restaurant in the village where I grew up. There was two huge tables with both sides of the family (child of divorce lol), my boyfriend and my best friend. I remember saying it “felt like a wedding”❤️ Yaaaas to getting people together for things other than weddings and baby showers!
Perfecting a recipe party just sounds so right. Because making time to cook anything at all can feel like such a challenge, if anyone I knew got to a point where they felt they actually got the hang of a tricky recipe, or a festive food that takes more care, I would be there to celebrate like they won the Olympics.
Every year my Eurovision watch party has been slowly growing! (It’ll be a whole 4 people this year lol) But I love the thought of a party to share a piece of media you love with your friends.
Planning to have a Parent Trap party on 11th of October because it's also my birthday and my friends and I love that movie! I love the idea to have a big celebration for PhD, which two of my friends are in the middle of, and I really love them and want them to feel special, important, and loved!
For my 24th I had a Groucho Marx themed birthday. Some of my friends dressed up as him but as we headed into Leeds it was just me with drawn on eyebrows and a moustache! Loved it, definitely want to repeat. Maybe this time on Groucho’s birthday 🥸Also a friend and I who love Parks and Recs do Galentines day xx
I got a badass new tattoo today. On my feet no less, which first of all hurt like absolute hell but also is an area of my body I'm really uncomfortable with. It feels like a milestone. I love it and I'm throwing myself a lil party for it.
In my country, we celebrate name day. Our calendars list names for each day of the year with names that are celebrated on that day. This is usually based on saints, but the practice/celebrations are not religious in nature. We also have the concept that each month has its name day, which is when the day and the month share the same number, so Jan 1, Feb 2, Mar 3, etc. So like Cinco de Mayo, but for every month. That's a great excuse for monthly get-togethers and celebrations.
My friend and I have a shared favourite day on the 23rd of April. Each year we wish each other a happy favourite day and try to call our loved ones. Each year we make that day extra special just because even if we can't be together. It's the best!!
There's a great book called The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker that's about planning meaningful celebrations and envisioning new traditions. In the health category, I was seriously ill as a kid and after my treatment and everything was all done, my family threw a big party and invited everyone who had been part of the family/friends/community that supported us through my illness and treatment. At my request, we served only desserts. When I was in high school, one of my good friends was a saxophone player and would celebrate Adolphi Sax, the inventor of the instrument's birthday every year. And I happily joined in, so hear you on the weird teenager thing XD
I will die on the hill that baby showers are utilitarian for everyone but the rich (babies need a lot of STUFF). And it used to be that there was only a shower for the first child! HOWEVER I am also 100% down for all the housewarmings, PHen-dos, non romantic anniversaries, and anything else we want to celebrate! Also that last commenter was right, I planned my own wedding and even my own bachelorette party!
I love all these stories about people throwing parties for themselves and each other - there is so much love there, and it made me very emotional. I'm personally planning to throw a party when by book is finally published! It came out of my PhD, but since I defended in the middle of the pandemic I couldn't have a party then, and a book launch party would be a great replacement. We also celebrate the fact that my mother survived a completely unexpected heart attack - dad calls it her 'rebirthday' .
My friends and I who are songwriters all do release parties when we put out a song, it really helps to have your friends gather and celebrate your achievement in a tangible way especially when the rest of the release process mostly feels like just looking at numbers on the internet. We’ve done things like make a cake with the song title on it and stuff. It’s been very cute.
One of my friends is getting "fixed", so we suggested a "no-baby" shower to celebrate. I suggested a uterus shaped piñata.
We also celebrate one friend's divorce anniversary every year. (It was a long time coming and a very good day)
My sister celebrates her divorce day by getting herself a present and/or treat.
I absolutely love that you are doing this!!! How awesome, you’re a lucky gang of friends to have each other!
Absolutely we need to celebrate divorces, the amount of courage it takes is just overwhelming.
I had a "no babies ever" shower after my sterlization. Games included pictionary of reasons why I didn't want kids, people guessing the childfree celebrity taped on their back, variation of pin tail on donkey but cut the tubes with a scalpel, and a "cats not kids" cake!
@@jessicaamey8160 that’s just awesome!
One of my friends threw a Favorite Shoes party where everyone wears the cool and impractical shoes that they have but never wear.
I ADORE this and know exactly what pair from my wardrobe I’d wear 😂
We recently had a "childhood party" for a friend who is not from the same country as the rest of us, to show them what our childhood parties were like. The typical games played, the food eaten etc.
We just threw a party for my friend who got a preventative dpuble mastectomy called "Thanks for the Mammaries" we had so many boob themed games and foods and did a slideshow, had an altar, did diy breast casts, and jeopardy!
I’m cackling, this is so funny and sweet omg
Thanks for the mammaries!! Iconic
A friend of mine did that when they transitioned! There were themed cupcakes and everything.
I've been thinking about holding a bidet-warming party because I recently purchased and installed a bidet
Give it a name! Reference it like you would a pet! Then surprise everyone as they arrive with who your new pal is. (Maybe this isn't possible, because I know bidet people sometimes get excited about it, but imagine how funny it would be! One of my friends is a bidet person, and she is biding her time until she can get one)
@@sarahwatts7152don't you mean bideting her time?
Bah dum tsss
@@TheDopekitty hahahaha I love it
I host a potluck party after American thanksgiving, before Christmas for friends old and new to make sure we can celebrate friends in the holiday season. It’s 0 obligation to actually bring food, but everyone always does. We make signature cocktails, listen to good music, hang out. It’s a great time 😊
In my studio we have an "end of your tapestry" party called loom fall (tombée de métier in french so the translation isn't great but you get the idea). Basically when someone in the tapestry studio is done with a hand woven tapestry that took up months, they invite the ones they love and all the studio to watch them cut it off the loom and they receive flowers and we have drinks and snacks and present our creation to the world
🥺💜
'Loom fall' sounds cool as hell! Translation is A+ 👌
How absolutely beautiful!
We got a secondhand microwave, and discovered that it was about to turn 40, so we organised a party for it where everyone brought microwavable foods (and I made cute little biscuits shaped like microwave with cute little boiled lolly window panes) 🎉🎉🎉
That's obviously not a personal milestone, but fun to celebrate an object that wasn't built with planned obsolescence
I wish this was a cultural thing. Imagine if we all bragged about how old our appliances are - we'd be a tiny bit further away from planetal doom
My colleague brought a cake to work when she paid off her apartment. She was so happy
It's not quite a party per say, but for over 15 years, or maybe it's 20 my mom has been organizing a coffee day where she invites all her friends over on the first Friday of the month and everyone brings food and they catch up and drink coffee and laugh! What's extra amazing is that sometimes there are themes, like one time it was that everyone was supposed to bring things they needed to iron so it was Ironing Day! And the themes were endless and quite silly but always fun
It's official. I'm doing this. IM GONNA BE THAT MOM!
That sounds so fun!
i loveee the ironing part 😂 and weirdly it makes me want to do ironing now 🤣
@@im_a_gnu I think most people enjoy arduous tasks when shared with other people :)
@@Vanbedda yeah thats really true 😅☺️
I love these! I recently got a new couch and had a “couch potato party” with baked potatoes to celebrate the first movie night on the couch
I LOVE that idea!
God I'm so doing this when I can get a couch!
This idea is adorable and I’m stealing it
Omg I love that
Omg thats literally perfect. I will have to steal that idea😇
What uncanny timing: I was just thinking last week that I really want to throw or be thrown a "heroic survivor of seven years as a single woman" party, because being single in your fifties is often fascinating and lovely but just as often really hard and lonely, and I want that recognized.
Also, shoulda totally thrown myself an IUD removal party, 'cause that was ROUGH.
The abuse survivor and 7 year thing is a good one. I got haircuts scheduled together for my friend and I once. It was the cut which would remove the last of her hair that she’d had for over 7 years and the last part of her that he would have touched. The stylists seemed so happy to be involved with that one.
Not a party, but as a person on the aromantic spectrum I really like to celebrate friendship anniversaries the way people would celebrate an anniversary in a romantic relationships
I'm also aromantic and I do this too!!
My housemates and I celebrate "Hydrological New Year". It's every year on the first of April to celebrate that the yearly ground water levels get set to zero in the national models (two of the housemates study hydrology). We have a big dinner with water-themed foods, think watercress, watermelon, iceberg lettuce, seaweed pasta, etc. All drinks are clear, so clear sodas and alcohols (or water haha). We all dress in blue clothes and decorate with blue items. Countdown at midnight with champagne is of course included. This year it was even raining at midnight, so dance party in the rain was included!
Ok as an environmental scientist who spent the last few years working in water testing I need to do this
me and my friends have quarterly seasonal banquets, summer solstice, spring equinox, winter solstice, it's a lot of fun, and we're having a spring equinox banquet tomorrow
This is such a good idea.
I've had a very shitty start to my 30s (end of an 8 year relationship due to cheating) so have decided to throw myself a 30.5 birthday to "restart" my 30s and I can't wait!
I'm getting all of my favourite people together to celebrate getting through this awful time. It's going to feel special to look around and see all the people who have supported me through this
My husband and I celebrated an odd little relationship milestone, we called it halvies and it was the date we had each know each other for half of our lives. I think that's a fun one and doesn't have to be with a romantic partner, it could celebrate any relationship that you have had, although it does get trickier as you get older.
Oh and blood donation parties! I used to go with friends and have an awesome breakfast after donating, it's really cool!
We had a vasectomy party for a friend. We all brought themed food and he got to remain stationary on the couch, recovering.
Astronomical event parties! solstice, equinox, eclipse, comet, meteor shower ect.
My 10'000 days of being alive anniversary is coming up! and me and my fiancée are going to drive down to the beach and spend the day eating a nice picnic and searching for solar powered sea slugs in the rockpools :) - 10000 days falls somewhere in your 26th year - I also have calendar reminders for 15,20 and 25'000 haha but I plan on doing something every thousand - They're silly arbitrary milestones that fall on random days, but they feel particularly powerful as someone that didn't plan on living that long 10 years ago and has since gotten better and wants to stick around - for picnics and sea slugs and hanging out with my favourite person and the feeling of swimming in an ocean so big and so cold that it's impossible to notice how tiny and yet wonderfully-spitefully alive you are 💕
I was like "damn all my parties are so tame compared to these awesome suggestions" and then i remembered i had a little "yey my fingernail grew back" celebration after i accidentally showed a spaghetti under it :'D Loved this video, stealing all the ideas
It's not a party, but when my husband and I paid off our house we went out for a very fancy dinner and indulged as we hadn't in years. Then we went back into debt because maintenance on a house is damn expensive. But it'll get paid off again soon.
A house is a neverending cyclenof repairs and refurbishments. But it's fun and it's all yours so it's good to spend that money. Better than paying a landlord for their yacht
This video is coming at a crazy time for me! I recently realized that I have never really celebrated any of my milestones... those being:
-graduating highschool
- quitting drugs
- quitting smoking
- getting out of 2 abusive relationships
- Getting accepted into art university despire waiting 4 years after highschool
- Selling my art
- Moving out of my toxic parents house
_ and many more~
And I decided to throw a big celebration bonfire at the beach to commemorate al of these things with my closest friends!
I think everyone reading this should try it out too
Congratulations to all of those!!🎉
I hope you will have a great day with your loved ones ❤
My ex husband & I had a "Thank Goodness the Basement is Done" party where we celebrated learning to finish the basement of our home by ourselves.
I got diagnosed with ASD last month after a really bad case of burn out and I'm moving next week, so now I want to organize a housewarming/'yay I'm autistic!'/'thank god this super intense period of my life is over' party! ✨ Which means I'll probably just invite my 3 friends for 2 hours and then spend the rest of the day under my weighted blanket hahah 😅
I'm a musician/producer and I advocate strongly for "release parties". Not listening parties like the ones that are held by the industry, but a get-together to celebrate that the record/single/music video is now out there. I got the idea because, if you don't gather, you'll be just scrolling and refreshing the page to check if people liked it and left comments, and it gets really depressing. It really sucks when you completed something extremely time-consuming and you get no feedback, so avoiding that and spending time with the people that helped you complete the task is the best plan for "release day".
I’m having to have a hysterectomy in a few months time and you best believe I’ll be having a uterus eviction party ! I also celebrate my name change day every year ❤
I work in a school and people usually bring in cakes etc for the staff room on birthdays. One of my colleagues brings in cakes every year on her anniversary of being cancer free!
This video has made me realise how much I’m mourning a lack of celebration in my life. I have had a chronic illness for over a decade, and have been mostly housebound for all of this time. All of the usual parties have passed me by, but also I don’t feel an illness anniversary is anything to celebrate, and haven’t got a satisfying diagnosis. It’s nice to recognise that I feel a loss because there IS one xx
My housemate and I do a silly little powerpoint presentation of the month's highlights/lowlights/memes to each other just to celebrate making it through the month - it gets unhinged but it's also so wholesome
I think something interesting about this idea/ conversation is it mixes a bunch of different scales of party. Like, for most people, even if they get married more than once, a wedding is thought of and planned for as a life-disrupting once-in-a-lifetime event. A baby shower is something that might happen a handful of times in a persons life. An annual Christmas or birthday party happens every year, or is maybe once per decade (on the 'big' birthdays). I think it would be helpful to break these ideas out by that scale - like, a Phen do is a wedding scale event, because no one is expecting you to get married ever again. Depending on life-stage, a house warming might be equivalent to a shower, or it might be equivalent to a birthday. A lot of these ideas seem annual, which is great, but different from the sheer scale of a wedding or wedding equivalent. I think we need a mix of all of them!
A friend of mine, who will likely get married one day, threw a HUGE party with a venue and catering and a fancy outfit for her siyum on shas (aka, she finished spending 7.5 years learning the entire talmud). She put a TON of money and work into it - and that's what made it as special as something like a wedding. It was resource intensive and unlikely to be repeated in her lifetime.
January is dull and dark (we're in Scotland) and miserable as everyone's broke post Christmas. So my friend started a Glittertastic house party on the last weekend in Jan for her female friends (I think they started about 2002).
Wear sperkles (clothing or makeup or arrive with no sparkle if you want). She decorated her flat with the same glitter curtains for years. Everyone brought drink and treats, and it felt like (even though we had Feb and Mar to go) we were coming out of winter, out of the depression of it.
The party evolved, people moved, she now lives too far out for everyone to get to hers. So now it's a more civilised affair, we had a long lunch this year, and everyone wore sparkles that we dont normally get to wear. I dont think anyone needed to be poured into a taxi like the old days, but it's such a joyous celebration of friendship and the women in her life, and it's so good to catch up with everyone.
For my 30th birthday, my parents and siblings all got me a full set of matching dishes (mugs, bowls, large plates, small plates x8). I knew by then that I never wanted to get married (aro/ace though I wasn't using those terms back then). Before that I'd had a mix of single dishes, a few bits that had been my granny's etc. It wasn't the actual dishes themselves, but just the recognition that as a "real adult" I deserved to have nice things (and never would have bought them for myself).
This is also good inspo for the fact that I should just throw myself a big party - my 40th birthday and moving into my current apartment were both during peak panini season, and I just got a massive promotion at work. All things worthy of having some friends around for some wine and appetizers at least!
When I was really struggling with not having enough on my social calendar, and I wasn't in a state where I could go make more things happen, I started looking up national food days, eating those foods on the day and making it a little bit special. It was really just for myself, and sometimes it was foods I might have eaten anyway, but I really liked that. I am in a space where I can do a bit more now and I have a big birthday party planned just prancing round a park with friends because I don't have the budget for a venue
I had a hysterectomy ~6 years ago, so I have a "Yeet-iversary" every year. It's not much (I usually just tag it on to Halloween), but I make Dirty Shirley jello shots for a short toast.
In Romania, everybody has a PhD party. Some even have two PhD parties. One more formal with the profesor, thesis coordinators, family and friends and one only with family and friens😊
I have noticed a bit of a trend of people sharing videos of their silly or interesting parties and my favourite one was of a group of people in their mid twenties getting together and sharing a presentation of what their jobs or schooling is about. I love that because I can relate to the feeling of having no idea what your friends are doing
We didn’t manage to actually do it this year because of personal stuff going on, but my roommates and I talked about throwing an Ides of March party! Caesar salads, finger foods stabbed through with mini swords, dramatic speeches, the works
This is literally a sex and the city episode. It's called "a woman's right to shoes" - carrie "marries" herself to prove a point to her judgy married friend who refuses to replace her manolo blahnik shoes that get stolen at her baby shower. Great episode.
Can we talk about the resentment you start to feel about gifts? I love giving gifts, far more than I do receiving them. I know I'm hard to shop for - I read books in English while living in a non English speaking country, I have hobbies that require gear that people who don't do the hobby won't know about or that are "big ticket items" that you have to save up for and also can't really surprise someone with because it's hard to get their personal preferences right without asking (say a backpacking tent, sewing machine, rock climbing rope...), I'm known for buying everything for myself second hand... I truly enjoy hunting for the perfect thing, or making it, taking mental notes of people's favorite colors and the things they share that might be gift ideas.
However in my group of 6 best friends, I have spent literally hundreds, (often for group gifts too, because I spend less money on a hand knit gift than a group "spa day gift card" gift) on gifts these past few years - there have been three housewarming, two house-buyings, three weddings, a civil union, bachelorettes, four babies (gender reveals AND baby showers...). On top of this, birthday gifts! My friends who own houses host birthday parties. Therefore, I give birthday gifts. Meanwhile, I live in a studio. I cannot invite even my 6 closest friends for a birthday party at my place anymore, like when we were students. I do not have the space for everyone and their babies. Parties now require at least a spare bedroom with multiple playpens/fold up cribs for naps. And even if I asked them to find childcare and not bring the babies, now that we are no longer students, people are less willing to sit in a hammock/beanbag, sofabed, setup in a studio, sit down dinner parties in an actual living room are the norm? Going out is harder with multiple kids, too. And I don't earn enough to rent out a place for an event. As a result, I've been given a grand total of zero gifts in the past 5 years, while giving gifts each year to everyone, sometimes several times per year. I have a friend in a similar situation as me and when I noticed I decided to also start making sure she got gifts. I don't know... I don't want to be resentful and in a way I'm not, especially when I give a gift that's my idea, but being roped into yet another group gift time after time is starting to be frustrating. And it's hard to tell them, because I also don't want to be given something I don't have use for just for the sake of it? Like. Can anyone relate?
That sounds cruddy and I’m sorry. I don’t have friends coz they kinda had kids and drifted off. Maybe you are your friend in a similar could hang out a bit more just you two? They might appreciate it too? Just a thought
I like the thought of a party where everyone brings that one craft project they've been neglecting for a while along to finish - it's kind of like body doubling in that you've probably built it up in your head as this obligation, but it becomes fun to tackle in a supportive atmosphere where everyone else has a Guilt Scarf or Forever Cardigan or whatever that they just want to see done.
Or if you’ve given up on something you could bring it to swop with some else’s UFO!
Our family essentially use any excuse for a themed celebration- our cutest is my mums “Jigsaw Weekender” in which she has an open house to invite whoever wishes to come and contribute towards a jigsaw over a weekend. She’s just precious like that 🥹
Me and my housemate had a (small scale) Jane the Virgin final episode party after spending the past year and a half rewatching the entire series. Everyone dressed up, we took our own glam bot pics, there were red carpet interviews and of course, the final episode viewing
genuis!
I love this so much as a non-wedding, non-babies, baggage around birthdays person! Definitely on board with celebrating new appliances/furniture, especially if it's after the effort of assembling flatpack or getting a freecycle find home without a car 🙃
This Saturday (5/5, or 5/5 if you're not in the US) is the 19th anniversary of me being cancer-free for the first time*! I'm going out for a fancy tea with my husband and a dear friend to celebrate.
*I had a perfect streak for sixteen years but then in 2021 I ended up getting it again so now I have two cancer-free anniversaries.
I just got engaged, and I fully support this message. Looking at you, grandma who only makes and gives blankets as a gift for marriages and babies.
Some things that I think would be a great reason to celebrate that are on par with a wedding in significance:
1. Getting your dream job, or getting out of a toxic job.
2. Moving into your first apartment without roommates
3. Paying off a a big debt, like student debt in the US.
4. Getting a dog or a cat. (How cute would a dog baby shower be?)
5. A non-romantic commitment ceremony, like my 2 friends that have been best friends since middle school and roommates for 10 years and share resources like a family. They should totally get dressed up in fancy dresses or tuxes and make everyone listen to their commitments and what they like about each other.
I once told my best friend that I was too anxious to invite people to my birthday party because I always feel responsible for everyone's fun and end up just feeling awkward and stressed out.
So now it's been 4 years since I last organized my birthday party, and every year my best friend plans out a surprise party so that I don't have to feel responsible for people having fun (since it's technically not my party, it's not my problem!)
In return, I am in charge of her birthday party, it's a lot of fun ❤
I did a Master’s party when I finished my degree and it was fantastic! Also another idea: a new pet shower when someone gets a new pet.
OMG this is great timing.
My dog recently was attacked (on a public holiday no less) and we're desperately waiting for his stitches to come out without breaking early and the attacker's owner to pay the vet bills.
And my partner recently got a new video game console, so we we're thinking of having a play party anyways.
So we can have a 'the boy is fine!' Party with games!
My friend and I have birthdays in the same week, and we both agreed that we don't really like loud celebrations with lots of people getting drunk, so we've just had a combined birthday High Tea party. We did an orgy of baking cake and biscuits the day before, baked scones the morning of, and our guests (many of whom have food issues) were asked to bring a plate of sandwiches or savouries to share, in lieu of birthday presents. We borrowed a lot of card tables and chairs, and had fun adapting various "big fabric things" to cover them - table cloths, saris, scarves, short lengths of fabric from the stash, etc. Everyone brought their own fancy tea cup, saucer and small plate, and we had 9 different types of tea, 9 tea pots, cow and oat milk in ceramic jugs, jam and cream in the extra sugar bowls (from multiple matched tea sets) and different card games like Uno for people to play if they wanted. I did a run around local OpShops to get teaspoons, cake forks and some spare ceramic bread-and-butter plates for people who didn't have a plate to match their cup and saucer. No disposables, people were each given a paper bag made from re-used gift wrapping paper (lots of it left from Christmas) to take home the excess food and we had a ball. It ran from midday to 5pm, and we had everything cleared away, washed and packed up by 6. It was wonderful.
A few years ago my brother's godmother threw herself a retirement party after being a teacher for over 30 years. It was so cool! I would also love "vacation parties", where you pretend to go on holiday together for a day and therefore recreate a destination at someone's place, including music, activities and of course FOOD!
I immediately was reminded of an episode of Sex and the City, where Carrie's shoes get stolen from a friends apartment, and there's this whole thing about how the shoes are too expensive for the homeowner to replace and she has kids, and the girls have a talk about it, about how birthdays don't count because everyone has them, but as a single/child-free person, there are no occasions to be celebrated or receive gifts. Because it was Carrie talking about it, I get the ick, because she's so selfish, and thought it was a silly a thing she wanted, however, reframing the conversation as it is being done, and coming from a person real person I respect, I love this. This is great.
I'm literally going to a party tomorrow to celebrate a friend leaving her horrible job and I'm so excited! I love an excuse to celebrate, will definitely be taking notes from this video 📝
The credit card debt free party actually sounds amazing (speaking as an artist, I really love the idea of wearing clothes in the colors of the card company)
BTW this outfit Leena...I'm LIVING for it.
Me and my best friend had an 18th Friend-iversary, when our friendship "turned 18", it was 18th themed with cheap typical teenager alcohol, everyone had to bring a "note from their parents" saying they're allowed to drink, and we had 18th sashes
It was so fun and lovely, we even made speeches for each other it was just super wholesome :)
Yep, I’m getting right to the age where friends are announcing engagements, weddings, babies, building houses etc. left right and centre… and I know I’m never going to get married nor have kids, and I work in ~the arts~ so my prospects of home ownership are practically non-existent compared to my friends and their partners with big shot careers.
Graduated from uni recently, and have not been celebrated beyond a few “congratulations” on my own Instagram post, but I suppose that’s to be expected in our misogynistic, heteronormative, and family centred world 🙄
These are all wonderful ideas and I just want to throw out a lifeline for anyone else overcome by sadness because they can't do any of these because no one would come. Loneliness sucks!
I just finished a really nice oversized crochet hoodie for my sister. It took me over a month and it was a pain in the arse to make all the lemon Granny Squares.
At my 25th birthday, my Grandpa and I celebrated our 100th birthday, because his 75th was three days earlier. We were at a restaurant with the whole family and it was so fun.
My friend group has begun celebrating our dear friend’s Bird-iversary, her anniversary of beginning her bird watching hobby. We celebrate by making bird crafts, watching weird bird documentaries, and spending time in nature. Her passion has kindled our own passions for birds and this shared enthusiasm has started being incorporated into other celebrations. For example, this year on Super Bowl Sunday (none of us care much about sports), we are celebrating Superb Owls and making PowerPoints to share facts about our favorite birds.
That sounds so much fun! 😄
I love birding / birdwatching too
🐦🦅🦜🐤🐦⬛🪺
when I finally had saved up enough veggie scraps to make stock, I wanted to have a stock party!!
This is giving me a cool idea - I'm currently long term unemployed because of a chronic illness, but I'm veeeery slooooowly getting better and I've begun to miss being able to work. So I think the day I'm well enough to enter either the workforce or some kind of formal education again I will throw a big party to celebrate! I don't know if I'll ever be able to work full-time again, but doing some work within a community nourishes the soul and that's the part I'm going to celebrate when I get there.
Love the spirit and ideas. Me and a few friends have been trying to do this. However the problem is getting the commitment and prioritisation from people. Everyone is busy and tired. If it's a marriage, new baby, or funeral, as they are perceived as life-changing, or really life/death situations and, importantly, "one time things", people will prioritise attending. Anything that is recurrent, like any type of birthday, will immediately get a higher percentage of "I will go next year". That's why even tho celebrating your birthday is common place, but most often it doesn't get everyone you love in the room.
And the legitimacy that those celebrations have at the society level also impact people's attendance for pratical reasons. Request a day for your best friend marriage, and most likely your time off will be approved. Request a day to celebrate Emma Goldman Day, and I doubt your boss will take it as seriously.
And same for asking about co-organization efforts. I may ask. But if we ask a friend to organize us something for our marriage, that is perceived as being worth the additional effort on her already super packed life. If I request her to make a cake for my cat gender reveal party, that will not get as much priority in her to do list and so when she accesses her limited resources, it will likely fall into the "I can't sorry".
It's not so much about finding reasons and acknowledging milestones, but about showing to people why something is AS important and AS life changing as a marriage, new child or death.
I celebrated my Phd with a PhDone party. I had there my parents and many friends and it was amazing. I don't have 'milestones' in sight, but I was toying with the idea to celebrate my 10 years emigration party and this video convinced me to actually do it 🎉
Loveeee. I think this feeds into hallenging amatonormativity and compulsory monogamy. Let's celebrate the other wonderful things about people 🎉
Idea for celebration: the days I got my Bachelor/Masters degrees. The day I moved into a new city and had to build another community around me because I didn't know anyone around. The day I will send my finished edited book to publishers. The day I will "graduate" therapy by not needing it on a regular scheduled way anymore. All great reasons to celebrate!
I had an aunt celebrations lunch, where I invited all my aunts over. Was lovely and they appreciated it ❤.
I also invited people over on winter solstice year, cooked a leg of lamb and combined it with celebrating my new sofa. 🛋️
I climbed mount snowden 3 years after open heart surgery and raised money for British heart foundation. Called it my heartivesarry.
We need to celebrate life and I’ve been happy to share and be indulged by others.
Me and my friends had a talent show where we all came up with a performance to show one another, I did a puppet show, there was stand up, a short film, magic and a song!
We also did a show and tell which ranged from favourite childhood toys to collections of objects to one friend building an electric toothbrush (a normal toothbrush on the end of a stick that he had engineered to move back and forth)
I think a leaving a toxic situationship party would be a great way to get closure on what can be a very confusing time - and a way to make sure you don’t go back!
I want to have a party once I get certified for Peer support. I was thinking everyone would bring their favorite Healthy coping mechanism (like art supplies for drawing or fidget toys) and we would swap them as gifts like a Secret Santa thing.
We recently threw a new job party for my husband when he got a job he'd been trying for over a year to get. We like to celebrate the "little" wins whenever we can because it feels so good to acknowledge that progress is being made and we're doing something with our lives.
A friend of mine had a Diagnosis Reveal Party, where they, like at a ~gender reveal party~, had games related to guessing what neurodivergence/neurodivergencies they had been diagnosed with. It was amazing!
brb filling my calendar with so many different celebrations
dropped out of university after getting my bachelor's degree in the history of arts to take care of myself, get back in touch with my creative self and figure out what i want to do in life, my close family threw me a lil party to celebrate this (hard to make) decision, we all ate cake and did crafts for the day. It felt good to be recognized for taking a decision for my mental health and not for an academic achievement !
This summer is my 10-year vegan birthday, so I'm going to have a cream tea garden party with my parents.
Wow, I really needed to hear the example from Instagram where the friend interviewed and got her dream job but then rejected it because of the bad vibes and her friend then CELEBRATED HER for CHOOSING HERSELF instead of a toxic workplace environment!!! I am going through the same thing rn, where I got my dream job but I feel like I should reject because the vibes from the interview and process have not been good... I was going back and forth, leaning towards saying no, and I feel like this video was a sign (sounds corny but feels true) - Thank you!!!!!! Really helped me listen to my values and gut ❤✨
The timing of this video is impeccable. I just returned yesterday from Cartagena, Colombia where my friend had "A Carty Party" for his 30th birthday aka Dirty 30. He got 40 people to travel there for five days. We went in a mud volcano as well as sailed on a pirate ship. It's his second international celebration with a big group of friends. I was so glad to finally be able to attend and I'll never forget the memories we made. Thinking outside of chrononormativity is so refreshing. I love all of these ideas and attending my friend's birthday party really opened my eyes that anything is possible.
I've just discovered that my chronic fatigue, dysautonomia, and thyroid problems are all due to an unknown soy intolerance. So I have to cook almost everything thing from scratch, but honestly, every time I do something I couldn't do before (which is most things) feels like a celebration to me.
My mum always does the yearly news letter. As for me since I've immigrated to a new country and all of my friends are from different countries we tend to celebrate each others tradtions. I'm Canadian so I host Thanksgiving/ Friendsgiving together, we do Swedish Midsommar, Quizmas (a made up tradition where we make a christmas themed quiz), the list goes on.
One of my friends threw a Valentine's day party a few years ago. Everyone was encouraged to dress as if it was a wedding. We had someone come as the "photographer", someone dressed as a bishop, many people in fancy clothes. I drew hearts on my face. Of course there was a bride&bride. Heart shaped cupcakes
Love this!! I’ll be having a kidney transplant in the next few years and this has inspired me to throw a party after the operation (ft. a kidney shaped cake, balloons etc!)
There's a sex and the city episode about this, where Carrie realises how much she's spent on celebrating other people's life accomplishments ( e.i. marriage and babies) and she ( single and childless) never gets celebrated. She ends up getting engaged to herself and receives the corresponding acknowledgement😊
Aww. Yay. I've been looking forward to this video. One of the examples is from me. YAY.
I fully believe in celebrating everyone as much as possible. I also have a "just cos" date (22 of the month) and I send something to a person I haven't messaged that month.
Thank you for sending one in 💜
Next Monday is 5 years since I graduated college and for reasons I couldn't celebrate at the time. I'm going to celebrate my college graduation this weekend!
I never liked my birthday, so every year I go out on Oct 1st and celebrate Julie Andrews birthday.
I love it!! Were you born around Xmas time?
Hahahaha ❤
I had a graduation party at a restaurant in the village where I grew up. There was two huge tables with both sides of the family (child of divorce lol), my boyfriend and my best friend. I remember saying it “felt like a wedding”❤️ Yaaaas to getting people together for things other than weddings and baby showers!
The way that this video forced me to realise that I have achievements! Loved it ❤
I had a menopause party! I recommend it! Also planing to have a I-have-a-new-dishwasher party at some point
In three years I'll be celebrating 10 years of not needing antidepressants
Perfecting a recipe party just sounds so right. Because making time to cook anything at all can feel like such a challenge, if anyone I knew got to a point where they felt they actually got the hang of a tricky recipe, or a festive food that takes more care, I would be there to celebrate like they won the Olympics.
Every year my Eurovision watch party has been slowly growing! (It’ll be a whole 4 people this year lol) But I love the thought of a party to share a piece of media you love with your friends.
Planning to have a Parent Trap party on 11th of October because it's also my birthday and my friends and I love that movie! I love the idea to have a big celebration for PhD, which two of my friends are in the middle of, and I really love them and want them to feel special, important, and loved!
For my 24th I had a Groucho Marx themed birthday. Some of my friends dressed up as him but as we headed into Leeds it was just me with drawn on eyebrows and a moustache! Loved it, definitely want to repeat. Maybe this time on Groucho’s birthday 🥸Also a friend and I who love Parks and Recs do Galentines day xx
I got a badass new tattoo today. On my feet no less, which first of all hurt like absolute hell but also is an area of my body I'm really uncomfortable with. It feels like a milestone. I love it and I'm throwing myself a lil party for it.
In my country, we celebrate name day. Our calendars list names for each day of the year with names that are celebrated on that day. This is usually based on saints, but the practice/celebrations are not religious in nature. We also have the concept that each month has its name day, which is when the day and the month share the same number, so Jan 1, Feb 2, Mar 3, etc. So like Cinco de Mayo, but for every month. That's a great excuse for monthly get-togethers and celebrations.
My friend and I have a shared favourite day on the 23rd of April. Each year we wish each other a happy favourite day and try to call our loved ones. Each year we make that day extra special just because even if we can't be together. It's the best!!
There's a great book called The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker that's about planning meaningful celebrations and envisioning new traditions. In the health category, I was seriously ill as a kid and after my treatment and everything was all done, my family threw a big party and invited everyone who had been part of the family/friends/community that supported us through my illness and treatment. At my request, we served only desserts.
When I was in high school, one of my good friends was a saxophone player and would celebrate Adolphi Sax, the inventor of the instrument's birthday every year. And I happily joined in, so hear you on the weird teenager thing XD
I will die on the hill that baby showers are utilitarian for everyone but the rich (babies need a lot of STUFF). And it used to be that there was only a shower for the first child! HOWEVER I am also 100% down for all the housewarmings, PHen-dos, non romantic anniversaries, and anything else we want to celebrate! Also that last commenter was right, I planned my own wedding and even my own bachelorette party!
I love all these stories about people throwing parties for themselves and each other - there is so much love there, and it made me very emotional. I'm personally planning to throw a party when by book is finally published! It came out of my PhD, but since I defended in the middle of the pandemic I couldn't have a party then, and a book launch party would be a great replacement. We also celebrate the fact that my mother survived a completely unexpected heart attack - dad calls it her 'rebirthday' .
My friends and I who are songwriters all do release parties when we put out a song, it really helps to have your friends gather and celebrate your achievement in a tangible way especially when the rest of the release process mostly feels like just looking at numbers on the internet. We’ve done things like make a cake with the song title on it and stuff. It’s been very cute.