Earth Day Birthday

There was always a bit of tension in the thought of having an outdoors birthday party—what will I do with all those rambunctious boys if it rains--but #1 son’s birthday usually coincided with a warm spring day so why not shoot for the stars? One of his party dates coincided with the global Earth Day celebration in 1990 so we decided to built his entire celebration around the Earth Day theme.

Upon arrival guests picked from an assortment of styrofoam balls and proceeded to the craft table. Each person painted a different planet and set it on a little tripod of toothpicks to dry. Games centered around Earth and science themes and the large sheet cake was decorated with plain, dark chocolate icing to represent the vastness of space, with the now-dry planets placed on top as decoration. After singing the traditional “Happy Birthday” we sang a familiar preschool song, “Earth, Earth, I love my Earth. A great big circle in the sky-ay.”

The big hit of the party was the recycled art table. Kids stayed there much longer than I’d expected and I think we passed over some other fun activities because they were so engrossed in making creative structures. I’d been saving leftovers from home and work—ribbon spools, pieces of wood and plastic, scraps of pretty wrapping paper—and now everything was out on the table for use. Some kids worked in pairs or threesomes, some individually. Best of all, they took it all home at the end of the party.

This was such a success that I gathered up all the unused materials and shoved them into a large shoebox. I knew the assortment would come in handy again, right? As the years went on I added bits of cotton from medicine bottles, tacky stickers from doctor visits, springs from ballpoint pens; the stash kept growing, But, hey, just wait for that first snow day and it would come in handy, for sure.

Last night I pulled the box down from a prime real estate shelf in the kitchen. It had been up there long enough to collect beaters from two eras of hand mixers… Those beater pairs were bundled and put in the thrift shop bag. Maybe four other items were saved. Times have changed and the empty medicine bottles (#5) are now acceptable at the county recycling center so there they headed.

It’s been 27 years since that fun Earth Day birthday. I think that’s enough years to hold on to the possibility that we’ll all gather around a kid-sized table again and make beautiful art together. This shoebox full of potential has served its purpose and it’s definitely past time to let it go. On to new memory-making.