The pandemic shut down her Peppa Pig party, but I’ll always remember it.
“Don’t worry, Mama,” my daughter reassured me. “On May 1, COVID-19 will be gone,” she said, waving her paper wizard wand. “And I will have my big Peppa Pig birthday party on May 4.”
My husband and I nodded and smiled uneasily. That was what she was convinced of for several weeks before her birthday. And we both knew there was no magic wand that would make her big Peppa Pig birthday party a reality.
Early on, we had successfully avoided the stress and cost of birthday parties in an urban setting. We had grocery store sheet cakes and homemade cupcakes, rotating at the homes of both sets of grandparents, with aunts and uncles, and cousins attending as our family expanded. And then once my son, her older brother, had turned 5 and we were on the official class birthday party circuit, there was simply no avoiding it.
“Mom, when am I having a birthday party?”
“You had a birthday party,” I would say, pointing to the leftover sheet cake on the kitchen counter.
“No, a big party, where I can invite all of my friends!”
And so, it began. Planning and prepping. Ordering and emailing. Following up and fighting with my husband. Ordering some more. Organizing. Cleaning. More fighting.
Where should we have the party? Was the space big enough to invite the whole class and be inclusive? Was there parking available? Who would be responsible for the RSVPs? (Not it, I would proclaim. I made the invitation after all.) Would we be able to invite the parents? Should we invite siblings as well? Why are we having the dreaded goodie bags with terrible candy and useless favors? Or should we make our own goodie bags with books? Did we order enough pizza? More pizza? Vegetarian options? How about chips and salsa? A cheese plate? What’s this party going to cost us? Please don’t tell my mom how much it costs, please.
“Ice!” my husband proclaimed to me one time. “We will need ice for the alcohol.”
“What? We are serving alcohol at a 4-year old’s birthday party?!”
So we organized and planned and planned some more for our kids’ birthday parties. Maybe because we were too busy working to have much of a social life, this was our party too. Maybe because we felt guilty about working so much, so yes to the extra sparklers on the cake, yes to more juice boxes, and yes to animal balloons. Maybe because everyone else was having a birthday party, our kids of course had to have a party too.
Then that Friday before her mid-pandemic birthday, I excitedly told my daughter that her birthday was on Monday.
“It’s your birthday weekend!”
She looked at me puzzled. “It’s my birthday? On Monday? It’s May 4?”
And somehow, after all the fanfare weeks earlier about the big Peppa Pig birthday party, she had completely forgotten that her own birthday was coming up. She had forgotten it was her birthday.
So on Monday my daughter quietly turned 5. With bagels in the morning, reading aloud birthday cards that relatives had mailed her. Without goodie bags. With a lot of FaceTime calls. Without piles of presents. With old birthday decorations and a borrowed birthday dress from a friend. Without cupcakes in her pre-K class. With a grocery store cake bought last minute.
After having a meltdown thinking about when I would actually make a homemade cake. In between holding down my job, and being a teacher, a referee and a short order cook–I wasn’t about to become the baker despite a friend offering to coach me through it over FaceTime.
I felt melancholy all day. It must be because I missed the stress of party planning. It must be because I missed her being the center of attention as she twirled in a brand-new birthday dress. It must be because I missed the huge smile on her face as 20 cute voices sang “Happy Birthday” loudly and offkey. I felt embarrassed. I was more materialistic, more self-centered, more privileged than I realized. I was sad that my 5-year-old couldn’t have a birthday party.
And then I realized. I wasn’t melancholy over not being able to host a birthday party for my kid. I was grieving the death of the birthday party as we knew it.
I was grieving–grieving like we all were.
The hugs and the laughs. The pats on the back. Handshakes and high-fives. Homemade cards we could touch and feel. The screams of sheer delight with the unwrapping of gifts. The blowing out candles together. The sharing big slices of cake. The tears as we waved bye to everyone and went back to our home with way too much leftover pizza. And the huge meltdown when that damn balloon flew out of our hands and up into the big blue sky.
Grieving family and friends. Grieving our neighbors and our school. Grieving community.
And as I ate leftover cake that night, I was also melancholy that five years had gone by in a flash. Of all of the birthdays, without ice for the alcohol, without a two-tiered Peppa Pig cake, and without princess tiaras for all, this was the birthday, the one when she turned 5. The birthday that she would be reminded of years later through pictures. And this was the birthday that I would never forget.
Mita Mallick is head of diversity and cross cultural marketing for Unilever, and loves living in Jersey City with her husband and two young kiddos.
Family
The pandemic shut down her Peppa Pig party, but I’ll always remember it.
After planning parties for whole classes to attend, a mom reflects on the understated celebration the COVID-19 crisis forced on her family.
