Throwing a 40th Birthday Party!

Depending on the person, birthday parties can be a lot of fun... or really awkward. But what about an over the hill Birthday party? Here are some recent ideas I came up with from throwing a 40th birthday party for a good friend! (And by the way, I just couldn't wait until he turned 40 to throw the party so we celebrated his 40th birthday a whole year early! When he turned 39!)

Obviously you want to roast your friend, but hopefully they will walk away thinking it was funny enough to forgive you after a few years... But you also want to involve your guests too. For a good party you typically need games, food and gifts!

Games!

There are so many options for games at parties. They don't have to be related to the type of party you are throwing if you think one game would be really fun for the group. However there are options for over the hill games, too! 

• Walker races: Get two walkers and have people race across the room (hobbling and stumbling like they were really over the hill) put on a scarf, insert hearing aids, swallow "arthritis pills" or whatever else you can think of. First one to complete their tasks and make it back to the start, wins!
• Pin the diaper on the old man: This game works just like pin the tail on the donkey. However you can change what you're pinning to what depending on how mean you really want to be.
• Bobbing for dentures: Fill a bucket or large bowl with water and have rubber dentures floating in the water. Have guests bob for the dentures and put them in their mouths without using their hands!
• I've even heard of some people reading a Eulogy!! Talk about mean!

Food!

We were not as mean as we could've been. Making a cake in the shape of a casket or tombstone is totally acceptable....

We made dirt cake (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/223415/dirt-pudding/ ) And put a sign in it like so....

(it reads: Older than dirt! cake) How could we resist?? To be honest, at least our real birthday cake looked somewhat normal.... Notice the small tombstone in the lower right hand corner.

Very similar to Halloween foods (gross lady fingers, kitty litter cake etc.) you can have a lot of fun with the foods! With custom foods like prunes, "baby food" (easy on the dentures) etc. Something else you can do is look up recipes from the depression era or earlier and recreate the recipe, because after all, that's about the time frame of when they were growing up, right?? ;)

Gifts!

Here's where you can really roast the person. There are so many ideas!

• Coke bottle glasses: Cut the bottoms of two plastic coke bottles off and connect them side by side with glue. Then take two straws and glue them to each bottle for the arms of the glasses.
• General "over the hill" items: Denture cleaner, beano, denture cream, prune juice, diapers, preparation H, Magnifying glass, crossword puzzle, hearing aid batteries, baby food, arthritis pills, fan (for hot flashes) and so many more! This are just a few random things. Honestly, if you just walk around the dollar store you'll get many more ideas than just these!
• 40th birthday survival kit: For this one I took a plain basket with a small chalk board on the front on which I wrote "40th kit" Inside were the following: Prune juice, polygrip, beano, denture cleaner, magnifying glass & crossword puzzle book, paperclips (to hold it together) and glasses. Also included in this "kit" were "anit-aging" pills (really just M&M's and arthritis pills) in a pill box with a note on an index card that read "Anti-Aging Pills: Dosage: under normal circumstances take one per day. In EMERGENCIES (like yours!) consume all at once! I also had an "Anti-depression kit for the big 4-oh!" with a note on an index card that read: 

A penny, so you'll never have to say "I'm broke!"

An eraser, so you can make all your mistakes disappear

A rubberband, to stretch yourself beyond your limits

A string, to tie things together when everything falls apart

A battery, so you always have energy &

A marble, for when you lose yours!

And inside a small box, with the note taped to the top, I put one of each of the items listed above.

• Other items for gifts might include old-style curlers (if it's a woman), canes or walkers or just any funny gift you can think of! My Uncle hand-crafted a cane with the number 40 in it for my Dad's 40th. Now talk about skill!

Now as for decorations, oh boy did I have fun! Obviously, black should be your color of choice. I used black balloons with "40" all over them, blew them up and hung them from different places, or just had them floating around. Black streamers went around windows and hung from the ceiling. Black table cloths were on the tables as well as caution tape that read "CAUTION: 40th birthday in progress". I decorate the birthday boy's chair with black ribbon, streamers and balloons. Had black confetti on some of the tables and the cake table. And! I had street signs with street names like wrinkle way, arthritis ave., crabby corner etc. It was so much fun! 

And, in an attempt to make something a little more "serious" I took a foam poster board, cut it into a large 4 and 0 and printed several pictures of memories, in black and white, and glued them to the 4 and 0 and hung them with ribbon. It actually turned out really good, even the birthday boy seemed to like it!

 And this, I know, will be the cheesiest thing of all. Seeing how this WAS a surprise party, I had to put a note on the door for everyone to read when they came strolling in the door about 30 minutes before the birthday boy. And, being the person that I am, this could not be just a normal note...
In case you cannot read it, it says:
Let's let John know what this party is about! 
We'll let him know with a GREAT BIG SHOUT!
We won't be hidden, just out in plain sight. 
This should help reduce the old man's fright. 
At 11:30, John's due to arrive. 
By then everyone should be well inside. 
Once through the door "SURPRISE!" we will yell!
"It's your 40th birthday party!" 
To him we shall tell...

And that pretty much sums up in a nutshell this over the hill party!
These are just a few ideas that might help you decide on what to do or what to use, or may help spark a few ideas of your own. Over-all, I'd say our party was a roasting success.