Planning a 55th bday party for my mom and I need some ideas. How can I make it special?

How about a nice luncheon or tea with some special friends/family? You could theme it or just make it simply elegant to make her feel special?

Are you having a big party or do you want to do something more intimate?
So nice of you to do something special for your mom!

How about putting together a nice slideshow of old pictures, if you can get your hands on any, or have any. We did that for my grandparents anniversary and they absolutely loved it. Plus is was awesome to see everyone so much younger.

Try and invite her friends from “the old days” like high school friends, old neighbors, people she worked with. If they are unable to attend they could still send a card or letter. The old pictures idea from chelseababyy is a great idea too.

Since she doesn’t drink alcohol you can make punch. It looks very fancy served in a crystal punch bowl. You just combine Hawaiian punch, sprite, and scoops of rainbow sherbet. We always make it at baby showers. It’s cheap, fast, and tasty.

If your mom likes flowers, ask everyone who’s coming to bring a small bouquet – and if people can’t come, ask them to send her flowers on the party day. My mom loves roses, and we did this for her birthday a few years ago – she ended up with about 20 dozen roses in the house, and she was so thrilled that everyone took the time to bring or send them just for her. Plus, she got to keep enjoying them for weeks after the party!

A friend of mine got a scrapbook of memories and each of the children got a page with favorite pictures of them growing up, she loved it, if you have the time you could do something creative like that.

I had a really great 50th party. I had it at a small restaurant/bar and served wine, beer, and soft drinks. We invited all of our neighbors, family and everyone that I currently work with and have worked with in the past. We had lots of fun. We played music from the 70’s and 80’s, and everyone danced.

55 does not make you an old lady.

Other ideas might include making the party a group experience. Can you hire a boat for a lake, bay or river cruise?

Does she have special interests? For example, if she likes gardening or bonsai, consider having the party at a large public garden. Music? Consider a group outing to a concert.

As a twist on the scrapbook ideas above, send emails or letters to her friends from the past and ask them to send a memory (write an anecdote, send a copy of a picture) of your Mom and why she was important to them at that time in their life. Put those together in a book for her. She will treasure it.

Have a great time!

Hawaiian themed. My mom loved her Hawaiian themed party. And it is inexpensive. I mean seriously—those plastic leis are like…20 pack for a dollar.

A Strip club & Dinner
Well, How cool is your mom 1st?
‘Cause you may wanna cut out the dinner.

I’d offer these important factors to consider:

—How large is her circle of friends? Does she frequently talk, lunch, shop, and hang out with 30 people and send out 200 Christmas cards to all her old school pals and 50 relatives, or does she consistently mention the names of only two or three people and rarely see them?
—Do her friends know each other?
—What (outside the household) is the focus of her world? work? church? volunteer activity? What does she talk about the most, and in which places are the people she mentions most often (and favorably)?
—Does she enjoy other people’s parties?
—The last six times she went out for some event other than with family members, what were they, and who did she go with?

Maybe it’s obvious that your mother is an outgoing life-of-the-party type, and you can get any twenty strangers together and in ten minutes she will have them all at ease, laughing and talking together like old friends and falling in love with her. That would be my old friend M~.

If you asked the above questions about me, on the other hand, you would discover that I have one steady operagoing friend with whom I have expensive dinners before the show, one steady moviegoing friend with whom I have modest dinners after the show, and one workplace friend whom I see outside of work for dinner once a year. And they know one another only slightly. I relate to each of them differently, so putting them together could be awkward. Aside from a few long-distance friends, the rest are so casual that I don’t have their phone numbers. So—if I were your mother, small party.

The worst thing would be to give her cause for embarrassment or pain, so please be sure you know what you need to know. After you’ve settled on the right scale and tone, come back and ask us for specific ideas.