Happy birthday!

In previous years, I gave S handmade clothes as gifts for his birthday. I usually made these for this occasion and Christmas. Though my sewing skills have been better overtime, it has always been time-consuming and frustrating to complete these projects. Last year, I hadn’t finished a shirt until late in the afternoon of his birthday and had to rush out to Publix to buy flowers, a cake and foods for the party while he waited at home. This year, I decided not to sew a gift for his birthday, which made me quite relaxed thinking it would save me a lot of time and work but it didn’t actually.

Since I had already bought him a lot of gifts for Christmas, which is close to his birthday, I was running out of gift ideas. I know he likes a BMW. Well, he will have to wait until I win a lottery ticket.

With the help of online recommendations, I had a list of gift and food ideas that would hopefully make his birthday memorable and special.

I went to Dollar Tree to buy ribbons, a large plastic bag, a gift holder, and red and blue confetti. I bought 2 baking foil pans and used them as a gift basket instead of a real basket because they were cheap and I could use them later.

The basket had the gifts that S likes (snacks/drinks) or may need (pens, a lamp for his office desk or garage work). S especially likes me to massage him, so I included coupons for hand and foot massage and facial exfoliation that vary in length from 7 mins to 20 mins.

The gift basket specifically included:

• 1 can of antioxidant sparkling water
• 1 bottle of electrolyte beverage Gatorlyte
• 1 package of M&M
• 1 bag of cheese straws
• 1 bag of spicy BBQ pork skins
• 1 pack of ballpoint pens
• 1 USB-charged lamp
• 1 Buddha-shaped incense holder
• 1 box of 24 massage tickets and coupons

Then I cooked him a party dinner including strawberry lemon juice, pan-fried scallops and deep-fried, flour-coated shrimp with grilled pineapple as appetizers, ricotta-stuffed pasta in garlic herb tomato sauce as the entrée with garlic butter sourdough bread, oyster soup and broccoli salad as side dishes.

The party was a great success, but it left me with a messy kitchen and dining table to clean up afterwards. S offered to help me clean but I didn’t let him to because it was his birthday.

When I gave S 24 tickets, I thought I would massage him twice a month. But he has already used 3 tickets in 3 days in a row.