Grown Up Ways to Celebrate a Birthday*

As you all know, on Saturday I celebrated my twenty seventh birthday. I won’t lie, it makes me feel nervous seeing my age edge towards the big three-oh. For my thirtieth I want to spend the day dressed as a Disney princess and drink a lot of champagne. Preferably in Disneyland/world. But in the mean time, I have two more birthdays that I would like to celebrate in a more grown up way. To be honest, by all accounts, I think I managed that to an extent this year, aside from prancing around in a tulle skirt and playing Cards Against Humanity, which is an adult game but in the wrong sense. Since then I’ve been thinking of a few grown up ways you could celebrate a birthday.

Wine and Cheese
When I was a kid wine and cheese screamed grown up party to me. My parents were often invited to them and usually it was my mum who came back worse for wear rather than my dad. I’m a huge fan of wine (especially the bubbly stuff) and cheese so this kind of party would be right up my street! Throw in some bread, and maybe cheese fondue and you have a more intimate cheese & wine rather than the kind you go to mingle. Perfect for a small group of friends. If you’re organising it yourself supermarkets usually have a fab selection of cheese on their produce counter and there are retailers like Cellmaster Wines online that offer various wines delivered right to your door.

Out for Dinner
This was one of the things I did do for my birthday, however myself, Bee and Nat all had our children with us which although was nice, it made for harder conversation. As it’s just LM and I always feel dead set on spending my birthday with her but it would be so nice to go out for a meal with my friends without the children. It rarely happens as we’re all broke or unable to all get babysitters but if you don’t have kids, eating in a fancy restaurant for once really is a great way to celebrate a birthday.

A Weekend Away
I know nowadays this is usually reserved for hen parties and stag nights, but I do think a group of friends away for the weekend to celebrate a birthday sounds like a great idea. Especially if you’re all quite cultural. There are various websites like UKbreakaways around that offer trips to cities such as York, Edinburgh and Bath that are filled with things to do that don’t fizzle down to a pub crawl.

Cocktail Making Class
Something completely off the cuff would be a cocktail making class. As someone who has spent many years working in a bar I know these sort of things are on the rise. Popular bars such as Revolution already offer various packages for a party of all occassions. These are generally more expensive but are good fun and a great way to celebrate a big number birthday.

I do struggle with the concept of acting like a grown up, so if like me you usually teeter towards the other end of the party spectrum you could throw a slumber party! However you decide to celebrate your birthday this year, have a good one!