In case you were wondering, the mantra for the first day of Novakkah 2014 was pretty much, "screw the sombrero, where's my crown." Or, you know, something like that. My kids picked out a crown for me this year and I wore it at work today. Probably for a good three hours (it got kinda heavy, being royalty is hard work, who knew?). Also, college students have no idea what to do with a librarian walking around wearing a tiara. Shocking, I know.
Aside from being magnificent, I have been doing things; but, my zeal for talking about the things I have been doing publicly has declined beause of some unfortunate shenanigans with other bloggers (no one likes it when their stuff gets stolen, people). But you know what, I am not going to talk about that right now, because it's my favorite time of year. It's really hard not to get excited about an eight day celebration of one's self. It's especially exciting when you can sucker persuade others to buy in to the whole thing, really. Originally, I wasn't going to do anything in the blogosphere to observe the good cheer happening around here; but, really, it's become sort of a tradition to celebrate in this virtual way, so let's get on with that.
I am doing the giveaways differently this year. In the true since of gifting, I am making the giveaway actual gifts--using the theme of "a few of my favorite things." That means I am not going to tell you what the gift is, you will have to wait until you get it; but, it will be something magnificent (well, something that meets my definition of magnificent, we'll have to see if the gift recipients agree). I will tell you what "genre" of interest the gift is part of and you can decide if you want to play that day. How's that? I mean, it's 8 days of gift-giving, people. What's to complain about?
Today's gift is "knitting related." If you want to be a candidate for today's gift, share a happy birthday memory with me. One of my happiest birthday memories involves Little Mister's 5th brithday celebrations last year. While I get 8 days, each of my family members get 7, you know, a birthday week. Because Mister's birthday is right after Thanksgiving, it happened to coincide with a trip to Disney-Everything in Orlando last year. As he was going to sleep on his actual birthday he said, "I can't wait to go back to Florida when I turn 6!" To which his brother yells, "we never to anything special for my birthday. Life is so unfair." Yeah, no. I guess we should have done a better job tying the trip to Thanksgiving rather than his birthday; but, whatever. It was funny.
I will take comments for this post, and all Novakkah posts, until 11:59 EST (or 2359, should you prefer that), Monday, May 12th. Please leave your responses on the appropriate post. One entry per post/person. Giftees will be selected on the 13th and gifts sent out shortly thereafter.
aw! i love Novakkah!
my of my favorite birthday memories was my 30th. my folks worked with my wife for a few months to plan it. they flew out to surprise me for dinner, then we went up to Cape Cod for the weekend. it was sweet of them to come and sweet of my wife to help plan it and participate.
happy start to your birthday week!
Posted by: duni | May 06, 2014 at 09:27 AM
We had a Nancy Drew birthday party for my daughter when she was in the fourth grade. The girls had so much fun running around the house with their flashlights finding clues and solving the mystery.
Happy birthday to you!
Posted by: Kathleen | May 06, 2014 at 02:50 PM
today is my twin daughters' fourth birthday, so this day four years ago is my best birthday memory. :)
Posted by: melissa | May 06, 2014 at 06:00 PM
So good to see you pop up! My favorite birthday was my 6th when I got a Cher barbie doll!
Posted by: melissa | May 06, 2014 at 06:32 PM
I think the roots of my Mimosa Day celebrations go way back to my 12th birthday. My sister had turned 21 the year before, and one of her gifts was a somewhat decent bottle of champagne (I'm not sure why her 21st birthday got this treatment, since we live in Canada, where she'd been of legal drinking age for two years already, but whatever.) I, being rather fond of champagne despite my tender years, managed to convince my parents that 12, being the inverse of 21, also deserved some bubbly. So they got me a mini bottle. That was pretty happy, and now, x number of years later, I celebrate every birthday by drinking bubbly all day. It's fabulous.
Posted by: kingshearte | May 06, 2014 at 07:48 PM
My favorite birthday memory was my 25th. A big group of friends and I went to a microbrewery tour where I got to place a glove over a bottle and run it down the bottling line AND compete in a polka and beauty contest. I won! (It was based on audience applause and there were about 20 friends in the audience.) The best part: I got to wear a tiara.
Posted by: tricia | May 09, 2014 at 12:28 AM
My most memorable birthday was my 21st, and I was in Scotland for study abroad. My friends took me on a pub crawl the night before, and I was SO hungover on my actual birthday. What makes it my favorite is that my friends took me on a picnic lunch and then my grandparents arrived for their visit!
Posted by: Carolyn | May 10, 2014 at 08:44 AM
you know I'm totally in for knitting related! I'd say last year's was pretty good when I was convinced I was sharing my birthday with Iain. Instead, I had some mild contractions and ate the best steak of my life at Ruth Chris Steakhouse. Rocky got to drink my birthday champagne (for obvious reasons) and we had strawberries flambe. [and, of course, the red convertible birthday is awesome too, but I've used that one here before]
Posted by: Kathy | May 11, 2014 at 03:14 AM
Oh, happy time of year!
One of my best birthday memories is the party I threw for my daughters when they were 8 and 10. The theme was cooking/food. They made chef hats to go with the personalized aprons I made (from old tablecloths), and all the food (I did prep) -- pita pizzas, fruit kebabs, ice cream cone cake -- and all of the games and favors were food-themed. SO MUCH FUN. It's about 20 years later and most of those friendships did not endure, but they ALL remember that party! And I had a blast, too.
Posted by: Vicki | May 12, 2014 at 09:38 AM
My best birthday memory is probably my own fifth birthday, when we had a Wizard of Oz party-- my dad and I drew a yellow brick road in chalk on the driveway and made a Wicked Witch of the West piñata, we played pin Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road and my dad dressed up as the Tin Man and my brother who was one year old at the time dressed as the Cowardly Lion. It was a great party!
Posted by: Caitlin | May 12, 2014 at 02:55 PM