Beatles Birthday Party

There is no way around it-- we've had Beatlemania since the 1960s and now so does our daughter!  For her 9th birthday, "all those years ago," we threw this Fab Four party.

That's right, our daughter Sophie was over the moon with the invitation for the party.  Rubber Soul became Rubber Soph.  A colleague put our faces on the faces of our respective favorite Beatles for the cover of our invitation which I fit to the size of a blank paper CD sleeve.

I made a 45 record the size of a CD.  The "label" side has the artist, Beatles, and the song title, "Please, Please Me," (flip it over), By coming to my Beatles birthday party.  (The party invite details are all on the "B" side.)  The song list contains songs by the Beatles that represented our family at the time.

The grocery store bakery made the Union Jack cake.  The large hanging record is a piñata but we only used it for decor.  A friend found this poster from the last Beatles concert ever on eBay and sent it in time for the party.  

We also hung a curtain of 45 records between the family room and the little lounge up that one step where the cake was.

Guests had fun with the theme and made their own wrapping paper.

The gift bags had four items, one for each Beatle:  John Lennon-style glasses; a bass guitar key chain for Paul McCartney; a harmony ball chime necklace to represent George Harrison's adoption of Eastern religions; and big jewel candy rings like the one Ringo Starr wore in the movie, Help.

And speaking of that movie, that was the movie we showed that night.  Or rather my husband showed.  Since our daughter and husband were the biggest Beatlemaniacs in the house at the time, she asked me if he could run the party.  I happily agreed and went out with several of the parents of the guests.  A good time was had by all.  (I did manage to get some snapshots at the beginning and end of the party.)

The following year, surprise, we spent a semester in London.  Soph had her 10th birthday there and used all her birthday money from the relatives to scoop up Beatle memorabilia and DVDs.  And then, she started co-hosting her own radio program, Beatle Nation, on www.kzfr.org.  She's been doing it every other week for over 6 years now.  Wow!  This party foreshadowed all this great personal Beatlemania.