I am having a multi 50 year old Birthday party for my husband, BFF and Brother in law. Instead of doing an over the hill party, I am doing a "the year you were born" which in fact is 1961. I need sugguestions on things to do, to eat, and games. What i have so far, is I did order these cool decoration, Napkins, plates, etc... all with the peace signs and flower power stuff, I also got the glow in the dark, peace and beads that hang in a doorway. Everyone is asked to dress like they did in the sixties too. I have and old fashion popcorn popper like the ones at the movies, I think fondue was big then, going to go to the speciality store to get the vitage candy to lay out, have sirus xm so will have the 60's music, sitting pillows in circle and having a friend bring is guitar. Have a few game ideals, like twister, pickup sticks, tiddley winks, also using black lights for effects, and making posters, that say like flower power, peace signs, I really cant come up with anything else so your input is appreciated. Food ideals? other things kids did make then? will have lava lamps too, but any other decorating ideals? I think the big yellow smiiley face came out then too. Please any suggestion would be groovy... Julie
So many wonderful ideals. Since I have not yet sent out the invites. I have deceied to change the theme to " A reflection of your youth: then this will pretty much cover all the 60's specially since by brother in law was born in 63. That way i can cover the year of birth through their adolescents. They would tend to have more memories of that time fame anyway, looking through their yearbooks. Clothing in that time was Jackie O, Hippie, Twiggy, and so forth many changes took place in that decade. I think it will be cool of our grown kids to see what their parents did as kids... Thanks again everyone so very much. Not doing this until the first weekend in Nov, so I will let you all know how things went. Peace out..
All of these are great ideas! Mine is small.
But i just went to a 60th party and the party favors were these small book of everything that happened in the world the year he was born! It was so cool. Everyone got one! I thought it was a great favor idea! They were like $2-3 each.
I think you are thinking of the late 60's early 70's......
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1961.html
Actually, Julie, things were pretty low-key and boring in 1961, JFK had been inaugurated as president that January but no flower power, hippies or peace signs, and the Beatles hadn't even invaded the music scene. Vietnam wasn't an issue yet, and when it became one that's when the country went into the peace, love and flower-power mode, in the latter 60's. Clothing was still pretty sedate, no bright colors and still reminiscent of the bobby-sox '50's, no smiley faces, no black lights, no hanging beads, nothing was "groovy" yet.
The BIG thing was the space race and to see who could get there first, the Russians or the Americans, and it President Kennedy's pet peeve, he asked Congress for $531 mil to put a man on the moon. BTW, he also told Americans to build themselves bomb shelters, so the prevailing emotion was fear. The Peace Corp was established that year, the first "Six Flags" opened, and Pampers were introduced ; )
Family was still a big thing, think "Leave it to Beaver' and "Father Knows Best."
Popular Films were:
The Guns of Navarone
The Parent Trap (the original with Haley Mills)
The Absent-Minded Professor (with Fred MacMurray)
101 Dalmatians (the original)
Breakfast at Tiffany's
El Cid
The Misfits
The Hustler
West Side Story
Popular TV shows were:
Wagon Train
Bonanza
Gunsmoke
Perry Mason
The Red Skelton Show
Andy Griffith
Candid Camera
My Three Sons
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
The Twilight Zone
Mister Ed (the talking horse, lol)
And some of the popular songs were:
Stand By Me by Ben E. King
Surrender by Elvis Presley
Runaway by Del Shannon
Let's Twist Again by Chubby Checker
Crying by Roy Orbison
Hello Mary Lou by Ricky Nelson (he became "Rick" as he aged)
Introduced that year were:
Total Breakfast cereal, Mrs. Butterworth's Syrup, Green Giant frozen peas, Sprite, Coffee-Mate, Sylvia's restaurant (NYC), Hardee's (fast food chain) and Tang was introduced a year or so before.
Scott Baio, Barack Obama, George Clooney and Lawrence Fishburne were all born that year as well.
Since you have ordered the party supplies and decorations my suggestion is to go with an overall 60's theme, and use DVD's of the movies or TV shows, and music of the year to set the tone, so it all coordinates. All the information I've given is in the sites below, along with much more, especially in the food site, as i didn't know which food theme you'd want to go with, there's several listed.
Sounds like it's going to be a very cool party!!
http://www.infoplease.com/year/1961.html
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1961.html
http://tsort.info/music/yr1961.htm
http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecades.html#1960s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Knows_Best
Limbo was Big.. The Beatles..,,Sonny and Cher......
Look up the dances..
Lots of games of Charades
American Bandstand with Dick Clark
Pigs in a blanket
Jello salads
Little Oscar Meyer wienies in crock pots with BBQ sauce
Pineapple shish kebabs with ham and cherries
Relish trays with little pickles, green olives, pickled cocktail onions
Groovy Babe, Peace out..
http://the60sofficialsite.com/Dance_Crazes_of_the_60s.html
You have a lot of great responses! Just wanted to say that for my grandpa's 90th birthday, we found archives of an actual newspaper for the day he was born. We printed them out and placed them on the tables. Everyone got a kick out of reading them. Since you are having a party for several, you could print out one for each of them on the day they were born. It is really interesting to see what was news on the day you were born. Also, we did the cake in the shape of a 90. You could have four small cakes with the numbers "1961". We also had a scrapbook made of my grandpa's life for the guests to view. We handed out scrap book papers to all of the guests so that they could write messages to my grandpa. We then took pics and added a few more pages to his book including all of the messages. Your party sounds like a lot of fun - hope you have a great time!
In 1961... It was still close to 50's territory in fashion and media. Think Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Parent Trap, Perry Mason, JFK , pre-groovy Beatles, West Side Story, Dick Van Dyke show, Mister Ed.... The flower power/hippie stuff didn't come until the later 60's and early 70's. But, it's still a cute idea, since they would know some of that culture from their young childhood, right?
some good cultural references of that era:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_in_television
a good timeline of that year both in popular media and world history:
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1961.html
*Cute to put a bunch of pics of the men on poster boardas babies and label
WHO IS THIS? or something like that..........
*Old records on the wall or hanging from the ceiling.
*Food ? If you did sugar cookies, write the year on them.
*Display an old pair of shoes that are disco shoes and they can get in them for a picture.
Cute idea and seems like you got a lot of great ideas already
Jiffy pop popcorn if you can find it... Show reruns of the shows popular at the time... (check TVland) Do you have a mirrored ball with multicolored lights shining off of it. You don't say when the party is but it might be cool to get one of those tin Christmas trees and hang the peace signs, etc on it with multicolored lights on it. Headbands and long head scarfs tied around sideways was popular. Macrame belts and bracelets...hey, sounds like the stuff my niece is wearing now..lol!!! The rest sounds like a great time.....have fun!!!
