Whatever happened to a tiny plastic basket full of M&M's?

If you were a child in the 1950's-1960's, and ever went to a birthday party, you may recognize these fancy little pink plastic baskets. Throw in a handful of M&Ms and a stick of Beechnut gum (yes, a stick, not the full packet), and this was the party favor every child at the birthday party received. (Girl edition, anyway. I'm not sure what boys got their treats in. Maybe there was a fancy little blue plastic basket.)

Birthday parties back then, in those days when we were one step removed from Little House on the Prairie, were not particularly elaborate affairs. Most parties were on Saturday afternoon, and you put on your Sunday dress and patent leather Mary Janes and trucked over to the birthday girl's house, your gift - which I can guarantee costs no more than a buck (roughly $10 in today's terms) - tucked under your arm. The gifts were at least a bit "nicer" than the kind of clothespin-wrapped-in-a-rag doll that Laura Little House may have gotten. But not by much. 

At the party, you played a few games: Pin the Tale on the Donkey, Musical Chairs, and the one where you looked into a shoebox that held a bunch of common household objects, and, once the box was whisked away, you listed every item you could remember: spool, pencil, tweezers, thimble. The winner remembered the greatest number. (I won that one a couple of times!)

Winners of Donkey, Chairs, and shoebox received a small prize: coloring book, paper dolls, eight-pack of Crayolas. 

If you didn't win a prize, all you got to take home was the little plastic basket. 

After the games, Happy Birthday was sung, and the cake and ice cream doled out.

Then you walked home. 

Somewhere along the line, having a birthday lunch during the school day trended. I went to one at Kathy Shea's house, another at Ellen Walsh's. You didn't have to dress up for these parties. You just wore your school uniform. For Kathy Shea's, I think it was on a Brownie Day, so we all had on our cocoa brown junior Girl Scout dresses rather than our green jumpers. 

Lunch parties came with lunch - I remember gagging at the tuna sandwiches Mrs. Walsh made us. She put green pepper in them. Imagine that! But at a lunch party, between walking home and walking back, there was no time for any games, which may have been what the mothers were aiming for

The most memorable birthday parties I attended were those of the Shepherd sisters, Maggie and Susie. One had a pink theme: a pink frosted birthday cake and ginger ale dyed pink; the other had a blue theme: a blue frosted cake and blue-dyed ginger ale. I was out of my mind with the blue birthday, but for some reason, I was never able to convince my mother to frost my cake with blue. (My sisters have made up for this grievous childhood slight.)

Another memorable party was at the home of a fellow Maureen. I mostly remember it because her bedridden grandmother was in the bedroom off the dining room, where the party took place, and we all got to go in and say hello to her. I can't remember whether this was Maureen's Polish or Irish grandmother, but the old lady was muttering in some foreign tongue. Polish? Gaelic? All I knew was that it wasn't English. And I can still picture that grandmother lying there, pale, big watery blue eyes, wispy white hair splayed out on the pillow, knotted up hands holding a rosary.

Kids didn't have an annual birthday party back then. Yes, there would have been cake and ice cream after dinner, and the song would have been sung, but most of my friends had one birthday party for friends per childhood. Two max.

People had more kids - at least in our neighborhood - and in those days no one made all that big a deal out of birthdays.

How non big a deal were birthdays?

I don't think I've ever seen a picture taken at any kids' birthday party.

Over time - and we're talking a lot of time here - birthday parties became more frequent and more elaborate.

There was a clown. Maybe even a bouncy castle. The party might have been held at a bowling alley. Or a Chuck E Cheese. 

All the attendees got goodie bags that were a lot goodier than those pink plastic baskets with a few M&Ms in them. 

But those Chuck E Cheese fests, with the kids all winning tickets on the cheesy games and making their own damned sugar-fest goodie bags, are BIG NOTHING when it comes to birthday partay, if you look at what's going on in LA LA Land.

Take little William's sixth birthday party, with its 100 hundred guests. It took professional planners, working with 14 vendors, three months to pull off a fire-station themed event. Among other features: fire-hose backpacks, a custom ball pit for the kiddos to slide into, a food truck, a water ice vendor (I think this sounds like Italian ice), a ceramic fire-truck painting activity, plush toy Dalmations (from something that sounds like a Build-a-Bear style stand), and a real fire truck.

There was a beverage station with customized drink stirrers and signature to-go cocktails for the parents, including one called “What the Fire Truck.” (Source: Washington Post)

I could use one of those just reading about this event.

And the birthday boy won't have to rely on his own memories. There were both a photographer and videographer on hand to record everything going down at William's Glorious Sixth.

Astonishingly, there are no pictures of my Glorious Sixth. I say astonishingly not because it was my birthday, but because it was the day my preemie brother Rich came home from the hospital. And no one bothered to get the Brownie out and snap his entrance. (He remains the best birthday present I ever got.)

That birthday is also memorable because my mother hadn't been around to bake me a cake, and my grandmother hadn't yet blown in from Chicago to help out. I don't know why my other grandmother, who lived downstairs, didn't come through with a cake. But my mother's friend Jane, who lived across the street, came through with some cupcakes that her mother baked. And, bless you, Mrs. Gannon: my cupcake had bright blue frosting. 

Back at little William's party, at least one of the adult guests wasn't all that impressed. Rich Radford was there with his 4-year-old daughter Harlow.

Mr. Radford mentioned that the level of production was actually dialed back from William’s fifth birthday party, which was hibachi-themed and featured real chefs and pyrotechnics. “For instance, there are no fire dancers today,” he said.

Well, pardon me.  

But it looks like, for a certain set, LA birthday birthday parties are as elaborate and planned as weddings. 

“It used to be that over-the-top was looked down upon, but now over-the-top is applauded,” said Leesa Zelken, the founder of Send in the Clowns, a party-planning service in Los Angeles.

 Zelken's business started out as rent-a-clown. These days:

Every event Ms. Zelken now orchestrates includes multiple vendors. Her consulting fees start at $350, and soup-to-nuts planning packages begin at $14,500. “For an event that I just booked, we’re doing furniture rentals, a performer, a glitter tattoo station, a craft station, a pancake artist, a party manager and a lifeguard — because there’s a pool and we need to make sure no one falls in,” she said. “That’s a very midsize party.”

Pancake artist? Now there's a job for you. (My idea of pancake artistry is a pancake that isn't burnt on the outside and raw on the inside.)

Who and/or what's to blame for this party-gone-wild mentality?

Surprise, surprise.

Pent up pandemic party urges.  Social media, especially Instagram. The Kardashians. 

“So much of my Instagram feed is parties,” said Ellina Chulpaeff, a 31-year-old attorney. For her son’s first birthday, which she combined with a birthday celebration for herself, she executed an Italian theme. There were tablescapes accented with lemons and blue-and-white Italian-style ceramics, and a faux boxwood wall backdrop.

And, by the way, when did every celebration start requiring a theme? Isn't "happy birthday" enough of a theme? Or the simple pink and blue "theme" that Mrs. Shepherd pulled off for her girls?

Speaking of themes:

Frannie Hudson, an in-demand planner, threw a Ruth Bader Ginsberg-themed party for a 1-year-old in which she put doilies under balloons to mimic the justice’s iconic collar.

I suppose that's better than a Melania Trump-themed party, where all the 1-year-olds get a goodie bag containing a mini-"I really don't care, do you?" raincoat.  

Parties for the uber-wealthy can clock in at $75,000 or more (some families don’t have budgets, Ms. Zelken said), but other parents who hire professional planners might spend between $10,000 and $40,000.

And it goes without saying that the kids are getting in on the act, requesting themes, activities, and goodies that they've experienced at other kids' parties.

I get this completely. After all, didn't I try to heavy-hint my mother into a blue frosted cake? All that wheedling for naught. Until Mrs. Gannon, without even knowing my heart's desire, came through with that blue-frosted cupcake. For that, I'll forgive her for making yellow cupcakes, not chocolate ones. 

Oh, what a world we live in.