My grandmother, whom we fondly call Nanay, just celebrated her 95th birthday. Given that it was a milestone, I wanted to organize something special. Since I'm kinda like the designated organizer of birthday celebrations at home, I decided to make this as special as I possibly could.
First, I had to check if people were comfortable with a party at home. Nanay often gets too tired when she travels away from home (when our family goes out, even if it's just to have dinner a short distance away, she often begs off) so it was logical to celebrate at our house. As Nanay's birthday got closer the number of Covid cases had gone down and hospitals were reporting fewer and fewer cases of severe Covid. Since the situation wasn't as dire as it had been in the past and everyone, including Nanay, had already been boosted, we agreed to have a party at home.
Next: the date. I asked Nanay when she wanted to celebrate and she decided the best date would be the Sunday right before her birthday.
Next: the guests. The plan was to invite Nanay's children and their families as well as Nanay's sister and her family. This would amount to around 20 people. It would be our biggest family gathering since the pandemic started. I also checked with my two aunts and both thought that meeting up for lunch would be best so people could go home earlier.
Next: the food. Now that I had an approximate headcount, I knew how much food to order. I decided to get food that I knew Nanay liked as well as food I felt guests would enjoy. I ordered several dishes from FoodTray2Go, one of my go-to places. Nanay really loves the Chicken Relleno from Dulcelin so I ordered that as well.
Next: the cake. I needed to make sure Nanay would have a grand cake that would make her feel extra special. I reached out to some potential cake makers and I decided to go with Baker Rae on Facebook. My main idea, which was inspired by a cake I found online, was to decorate it with photos of Nanay that were printed on edible paper. Since I needed to provide Baker Rae with more details, I searched for more ideas and found some good ones. I also asked a friend for her suggestions. I ended up combining some concepts I got from different cakes to come up with a final design which I then shared with Baker Rae. Since the design would include photos printed on edible paper, I also had to provide pictures at least a few days before the party (which I did).
Next: my gift. I decided to give Nanay a Photobook. I had hundreds of photos of Nanay with my family but I wanted to make sure other important people in her life would be there too. I asked some relatives for pictures and I also searched the Facebook accounts of other relatives since I knew they would have some good pictures of Nanay, especially during parties and family gatherings. Once I got a good enough set of pictures, I had to choose which ones to use. This was a huge effort! In the end, I deecided to use about 350 photos. Now I had to do the layout. This also took a massive amount of time. I must have spent fifty hours gathering pictures, selecting which ones I would use, organizing and sequencing them, laying out the book, and adding captions. Whew! (Sadly, my gift didn't make it in time. But Nanay still appreciated it when it arrived, especially when she saw photos of big family gatherings that she hadn't seen before.)
Next: the party set-up. Since we were celebrating at home, and our house is not really equipped to accommodate 20 guests, I had to get tables and chairs. I asked my friends if any of them could recommend a reputable place where I could rent tables and chairs. One of them said she had portable tables and chairs that I could borrow. Awesome! Naturally, I had to pick up the chairs and tables and I decided to do this the day before the party. (I also had to return the tables and chairs once the party was over.)
Finally: preparations on the day itself. The cake was delivered to me in the morning. Thankfully, Baker Rae delivered it even earlier than our agreed time. Such great service! It was a large and heavy two-tier cake so I drove slowly to make sure I wouldn't damage it along the way, especially since I still had to pick food up from Foodtray2go and Dulcelin. I arrived at my family's house at 11am. As my mom prepared the food, I set up the cake in the living room table (it wouldn't fit in the dining table anymore, plus having it in the living room meant people would see it as soon as they came into the house). Everything was ready shortly before noon, which was perfect because guests started arriving.
I didn't tell Nanay who was coming so she was especially surprised to see my aunt who now lives in Batangas with her entire fmaily. Nanay had a great time catching up with everyone! After people had settled in, we invited everyone to start eating. I'm glad people enjoyed the food I got. After lunch, we brought everyone together in the living room to sing "Happy birthday" to Nanay. Thankfully, Nanay loved the cake, as did everyone else. She was also so excited to see the edible photos!
It was mid-afternoon when people started to leave. There was a lot of cleaning up to do and I still had to return the tables and chairs to my friend. It was really exhausting organizing this party but I am really happy that Nanay enjoyed it.
Happy 95th birthday, Nanay!
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