THE SEASON is upon us and our six-week succession of
birthdays, major holidays, and anniversaries has pushed us into the annual
frenzy of parties and celebrations. So this week, the story around here is
birthdays and what to do for them.
The birthday scene in Muscat is pretty grueling. As the
magical day draws nearer, expat and Omani parents alike struggle with the
annual festivity. Should it be an indoor arcade and junk food combination?
Muscat suffers from a small handful of these indoor arcades which are generally
festooned with grossly enlarged, happy photographs of content children riding
rides and playing innocuous video games but are frequented by children who
scream, pull their nannies from ride to ride, and shoot passers-by with the
video game guns. They are always nestled in a cocoon of fast food restaurants:
McDonald’s, Hardee’s, KFC…they are all faves.
Tehva, predictably enough, thinks these indoor arcades would
make the ideal birthday party location but I disagree and, since I hold the
purse strings, we have yet to suffer through such a party.
Of course there is always the pizza party option, the movie
theater option, and the hire-the-magician-who-always-says-“YES BO!” option.
There is the pool party option, the party in a park option, the
rent-a-restaurant option, the DJ dance hall option, and the party tents in the
front of the house option.
We are swimming in options here in Muscat and yet I live in
mortal terror of most of them because they all seem to be colossal energy suckers;
frankly, my energy banks are almost depleted just with day-to-day life here.
And here is a brutal (and, possibly, revolting if you are an über parent)
confession--I have, through overt manipulation, managed to avoid throwing birthday
parties for my own children each year by forcing them to choose between having
a birthday party in Muscat or doing something fun and moderately expensive in
Dubai each January. They always choose
Dubai. **SCORE**
This year, though, Tian decided she was going to have a
birthday party. As she laid it out, it promised to be a low-energy affair so I
agreed but with hesitation. After all, her judgment remains teenage-ish and her fantasy birthdays seem too out of the box for a crowd more accustomed to malls and pizza parlors than nature. Her party last year (an epic trek
up a wadi about an hour and a half away) was rained out against all odds TWICE,
much to most of her friends’ relief. Based on that experience, I
decided to, well, I don’t want to say manipulate, but as the mother of a now-
teenager I am seeing that I have to subtly encourage the shaping of certain
situations in order to make them feasible. You can read feasible there as
acceptable to and convenient for me if you like.
So here is how Tian managed to have the best birthday party
ever, in spite of her history of party fails.
1.) Party
guests--I kind of accidentally booked three Couchsurfers in to our place
for the weekend which meant that we had a French author-illustrator of
children’s books staying on the third floor, an Argentinian biker sleeping on
the futon in the school room, and a South Korean university student sleeping on
the spare mattress. Bringing those three to the party with us provided immense
entertainment. Once we got to the beach, the author-illustrator set to work
carving the cartilaginous inside of a squid into a Maori-like mask and
presented it to Tian as a gift. The biker juggled tennis balls much to Tehva’s
delight. And the student dragged the kids around the tide pools fishing out
creatures great and small for observation and possible consumption.
Their presence also
added a quirky, bizarre twist to the general ambiance, firmly maintaining our
status as “that weird family that carts perfect strangers around on weekends”.
2.) Party food redefined--We convinced Tian
that shwarma wraps, pigs in a blanket, and finger food requiring advance preparation are not acceptable party foods (due to the fact that I would
have to trek out and buy them/make them the night before, during which time I wanted to
be out enjoying a Christmas party on someone’s roof instead of chasing down birthday snacks). Tian now believes that French stick and lunch meat straight from the
package make better eats and, more importantly, so do her friends.
3.) Sun-proof
party tent--In order to avoid carting along more than the basics, we
took along a huge tube of sunscreen instead of that sun blocking party tent we
had considered. Okay, honestly the only party tent we considered was in
passing: “Do you think anyone will get sunburned at the beach? I guess some
people hire tents to address this possibility. Do we have another tube of
sunscreen?”
4.) Birthday bonding--We provided
snorkeling equipment to teens, some of whom had never really been in the ocean before,
timed the party so that it was almost low tide, and forgot to warn them about
the sea urchins. No worries. Only one ended up with spikes in her hand, feet,
and stomach, which provided a sort of bonding moment among the kids in
attendance.
5.) Instant party favors--We also
inadvertently timed our visit with that of a spear fisherman who impressively skewered four enormous squids and then decided to clean them on the beach. He tore
out the “backbones”, ink sacs, and guts, and left everything on the rocks while
explaining his vivisection. That was worth every cent we spent on his time
which was, oh yeah, nothing.
6.) Face painting--The kids squeezed the
squids’ discarded ink sacs, smeared their faces with the black oily stuff and
then ran around the beach screaming, “War paint, war paint!”
7.) Birthday cake--We forgot to bake a
cake so we gave the kids Dixie cups full of fruit salad instead. We also forgot
the spoons so they drank the fruit and claimed it a great adventure. Tony
reckons that only a group of homeschooled teens would happily finish off a
gallon of fruit salad and not complain about the absence of a cake.
The two hours of beach time passed in a flash and before we
knew it, it was time to pack everyone up and head home. It was the best
birthday party ever and I would guess that if anyone wanted to make one of
those credit card commercials about it, it would go something like
A collection of dead
squids and their innards--$0
Three entertaining
gentlemen from various parts of the world--$0
Beach front party location--$0
Who needs Visa?
