In our family, children's birthdays were celebrated on the same scale as adults': with a bunch of guests, a full-fledged festive table, gatherings until late; and plus, unlike adults, who simply ate, drank, sang and danced, there was a holiday program. Of course, Mom took care of all this. On the festive table during tea, we always had meringues, mushroom cookies, nuts with boiled condensed milk, crispy wafers rolled into a tube (I'm writing this now and am horrified, realizing how long these sweets take to prepare). The cake, however, was store-bought, very preferably "Flight".
And mom also came up with games and competitions, bought prizes, prepared musical accompaniment. And that's the most interesting thing!
When all the guests had gathered, the salads had been eaten and the gifts had been given, the cultural and entertainment program would begin. I think we never had a birthday party without playing forfeits. Everyone would choose some small objects, put them in a common bag, and choose a leader who would come up with tasks. The leader would turn away, mom would randomly pull out one object from the bag and ask: "What should this forfeit do?" Obvious tasks like singing a song or crawling under the table and barking quickly got boring, and we had to come up with something more interesting: kiss the birthday girl, take a piece of cake to the neighbors for the health of the newborn, eat a slice of lemon, dance rock and roll with dad.
To the cheerful song "Hands up, baby, hands up» groups Ottawa (by the way, I looked it up, the band is French, has nothing to do with Ottawa) we passed a ladle around, and whoever had it in their hands when the music suddenly ended was out. That is, this is a version of the game "Free Chair" in a small apartment.
A creative pause in the unbridled fun was brought by drawing blindfolded on Whatman paper. A flower with petals corresponding to the number of guests was also cut out of Whatman paper, and each guest wrote some wish for the birthday girl on the petal. :)
And the highlight of the program - cut off a gift! A rope was stretched in the room, on which various small souvenirs wrapped in paper were suspended, each participant, blindfolded, made his way to the rope and cut off whatever he came across; so, it turns out, the tradition of giving presents to guests has its roots in the distant Soviet past.
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