My aunt’s house in a suburb of London is full of books; bookshelves line the walls of my two cousins’ bedrooms, and there are floor-to-ceiling books in the guest bedroom and my uncle’s office, as well as a shelf of cookbooks in the kitchen and a stack of joke books in every bathroom. I must have been seven years old when I discovered Josceline Dimbleby’s Christmas Book. Josceline Dimbleby, it would seem, was the wife of a British television presenter, and though I could not make heads or tails of how to pronounce her first name nor her last name, it was not lost on me that she wrote an entire book about how to prepare for a single Christmas party. Most of the book consisted of recipes full of metric measurements, roasted goose, pigeons, and Christmas puddings that looked nothing like what Americans call pudding. Only two pages were devoted to Christmas presents; among the suggested gifts for children were disguise spectacles and various other small items described as “amusing” and “brightly coloured.”
My primary occupation in seventh and eighth grade was being a fan of the band Genesis and its members. No sooner had I turned twelve-and-a-half when I began planning my Genesis-themed birthday party. I wrote dozens of pages of plans; suddenly Josceline Dimbleby’s entire book about one party no longer seemed so strange. By party notes focused less on food and more on entertainment; I planned over fifty games, each named after a Genesis or Phil Collins song, such as a modified version of Telephone (Misunderstanding) and blindfolded tag (Invisible Touch). I named the party the Phil-o-phile games and intended it to last a whole weekend.
Of course, only a small portion of my scheme came to fruition. As I had no friends to speak of, my younger sister graciously invited two of her friends. My sister drew a picture of Phil on a poster board where the guests could leave their party greetings, like they used to do at Bar Mitzvahs in those days. We only played one game, a peanut-shelling contest named after Throwing It All Away. But Josceline Dimbleby would have been proud of the cake.
It was made from a Funfetti mix, the same medium most of my classmates used for the assignment in science class where we made models of plant and animals cells. Instead of decorating my birthday cake with frosting drawings of an endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria, though, I decorated my cake to look like the cover of the Invisible Touch album, with a spiral of green frosting dashes and a chocolate sauce handprint.
written by Rawia
written by Rawia
Here is my question for you:
What is the best music-themed party you have ever attended?
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