Our First Swiss Birthday Party

Candles in the pizza (Luc isn't a big fan of cake, so we had ice cream bars instead.)

     Saturday we celebrated Luc's 12th birthday (in French, he has a "douzaine" years -- which sounds a lot like a dozen to me). It was our first birthday party in Switzerland. Drew turned 15 in September, but continuing in his quest to be our least-expensive child, he didn't want a party (also factoring into the decision was the fact that we had been here for about two weeks and really didn't know anyone to invite). Lucas, being the social bug that he is, wanted a party with all 50 or so of his best friends. Birthday parties here are big -- like, rent out a hotel ballroom kind of big -- and we neither can, not want to, compete with that. So we talked Lucas down to inviting his 15 classmates over for a homemade treasure hunt and homemade pizza. It ended up that we had 12 Year 7's, including Lucas. I have said before on this blog that Luc has a really nice group of friends, and I was struck again by that fact at the party. The gang was totally up for our exhausting 90 minute trek all over Onex and Lancy to find and decode the clues we'd hidden. They read their maps, jogged at least a couple of miles, stuck with the hard-to-solve ciphers, and were great sports -- both about winning the treasure chest of gold-wrapped chocolate bars and coins -- and about losing it. (The winners shared nicely, and our carnozet floor was littered with gold foil from the wrappers.) We had three teams of four kids each, with Drew, Johanna, and Eric providing direction and managing the safety of the crew. I had spent the week planning, and split my time during the party between hanging out with Johanna's group and setting up clues at home.
     Besides the fact that they are all enthusiastic, polite, and personable kids, Luc's friends also exemplify what I have mentioned before as one of our favorite parts about living here, which is the opportunity to get to know people from all different cultures. Luc's guest list included kids from Germany, the United States, South Korea, Spain, South Africa, Great Britain, France, Sri Lanka -- and even two who have spent their whole life in Geneva (though neither is, of course, Swiss; that, unfortunately, seems to be the underrepresented group in all our gatherings). As a side benefit, while we were racing madly around the neighborhood (in a completely non-disruptive Swiss-approved fashion, of course), I met one of the neighbors. She asked (in English that sounded completely American to me) if we were doing a treasure hunt. We chatted, and I found out that she is Italian and her husband is English, she came here with P&G several years ago, and has two small children (I immediately told her that I have two excellent babysitters should she have the need). We still have yet to meet many neighbors besides the lovely gardeners next door, so I was delighted to get to know someone else.

Johanna directs the Mafia game.

     After the hunt, the kids headed to the basement for food and games. They played Mafia, which does not have to involve as much shrieking as seemed to be drifting up the stairs. Every time we went downstairs to check on the injuries, however, the gang was sitting quietly.
     In my extremely limited experience, many European kids don't like cake -- it's too sweet. Happily, neither does Lucas, though I'm not sure it's for the same reason. So we put the candles in the pizza and had ice cream bars for dessert. Another difference in European vs. American parties is the presents. First of all, the child whose birthday it is does not open the gifts during the party. Lucas was ambivalent about this tradition; perhaps feeling that he needed someone to appreciate the loot, he asked a few of his closest buddies to stay an extra 15 minutes and witness the gift-opening. The second interesting difference involving gifts (perhaps connected to the first) is that most people gave cash. Some gave gift cards, and a very few gave actual gift items. Lucas was delighted with this custom, as it means he can go shopping, which, inexplicably, he loves. I wish I felt the same about the upcoming Nerf-gun-buying excursion -- but I guess that's how the kids feel when I make them spend Wednesday afternoon at the hair-cutting school.