| Party Like It's Your Birthday By: Tomi Afolayan Your birthday is your special day, an occasion that celebrates another exciting year of your life. Aside from adding a year to your age, a birthday is a milestone that can mean a lot of things: If you are turning 13, you are finally a teenager, at 16 you can become a licensed driver, and at 18 you can truly be independent through participating in actions like voting and making most decisions—your parents would usually have to approve of—on your own. At times the most exciting part of getting older can be the celebra- tion, but it can also be stressful. The sixteenth and eighteenth birthday party tend to be the ones for which teens like to have the biggest celebrations, but every birthday is special and worthy of a celebration. It may seem like a challenge to plan a successful and memorable birthday party while staying within a given budget, but don’t fret; here are some fun low–cost birthday party ideas. When planning the party, the most important thing to keep in mind is that this is your day and you should do things that you enjoy, but of course you want your guests to enjoy themselves as well. Depending on your budget, you may want to have the party somewhere besides where you live. If that’s the case, you can rent a function room in your area. If you live in an apartment complex or neighborhood that has a community center available to the tenants, then you can just contact the office in charge of the community center to schedule the event. Often a community center is available free of charge to tenants, and these spaces are perfect for parties. A party at your house or apartment may be more your style, and you can plan to use both inside and outside space at home. If the weather is nice you can have a barbeque: Who doesn’t like hamburgers, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, pizza, soda or candy? You can even have veggie burgers for those who are vegetarians. Now for the theme: a fun theme for all you Twilight-loving people, no matter what your age, is a Twilight party. You can dress up as your favorite character and ask your friends to also wear costumes. Red candles and a dark setting would be ideal to create the right mood. You can also serve mostly red beverages and some Fruit Punch, Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, etc. For food you can have spaghetti and meatballs. The idea is to keep the party in a fantasy-themed way. If you are really ambitious, you can get poster board cutouts of some characters and for the music you can use the Twilight sound track. Another fun theme for a 13th birthday party is an American Girl series party. You can dress up as your favorite character and send an invitation to your guests with the name of the character you think they should be. Last, a roller skating party can be a lot of fun, and you can designate it as an 80’s or 90’s party or any other theme you would like. Most roller skating facilities have a DJ, so that would cut down the cost and you can just give them a song list or bring your own CD(s). You can also have a Grease themed party, a masquerade or a chocolate party, and you can always use the theme of your favorite hobby. So now that you have some ideas don’t stress. A party is always fun with good music, great food and your friends. Once you have planned you can sit back, relax and most importantly, enjoy your special day. |
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