UBC October 2024 - Colin's Birthday Party

Happy Sunday, Bloggers, how are things today? 

In Switzerland, the clocks were changed to winter time today, and we were allowed to sleep an hour longer.

So the other day it was Colin's birthday party. He's not a very talkative guy, and I don't like to be too inquisitive, but here's what I can share:

His "follower friend" was told by his Mom it'd be nice if he offered to help with preparations in the kitchen, and he showed up.  

They made two kind of veggie enchiladas: Regular and vegan, meaning for one pan they used non-dairy sour cream and cheese. Obviously the "vegan cheddar" wasn't melting, so that was a bit disappointing, but I think the one guest for whom this extra effort was made, appreciated it.

This is an older picture I took when we were making the same meal. It may have looked less neat with two 16-year olds in the kitchen, but I have to say, the did a pretty good job cleaning up. 

The virgin mojitos they made left sticky sports all over the place, but apart from that, I was quite impressed.

The night before Colin and I had also made vegan chocolate cupcakes which apparently turned out well, there weren't any leftovers.

The boy's Mom who was going to sleep at our house was worried about him drinking and driving, and I said I wasn't even sure there was going to be alcohol at the party.

As I talked about in a previous post, in Switzerland, 16 year olds are allowed to buy and drink beer and wine, and most parties Colin has been attending, actually happened for this exact purpose. Colin doesn't like the taste of alcoholic beverages, and many times he's the only one or one of a very small group that doesn't drink. 

When we went shopping I wondered how he was going to go about this. I asked, where he wanted to go, and he said Migros. I sort of breathed a sigh of relief inside. You see, of the two huge grocery chains in Switzerland, Migros and Coop, Migros is the one not selling alcohol for a bunch of reasons which I wrote about here. 

The fact that we hadn't bought any alcoholic drinks didn't necessarily mean that none would be consumed during the evening. In fact, someone had considered giving Colin a bottle of wine, but then she remembered that he wouldn't even appreciate it. In the end, only iced tea and cola were consumed. 

I asked Colin the next day if it was uncool for certain guests that no meat or beer was offered at this party? He said not really, but perhaps it would have helped to break the ice more quickly. 

Not all the guests knew each other. He had been friends with some of the kids since elementary school and the hockey team, but he had only met the others last school year at Senior High. Also at the time he invited people over, a girl and a boy were still a couple. in the meantime, they had broken up, and it was a bit awkward for the two of them. Respect that they both showed up anyway!

Good thing he had a plan. They played Hitster.

It's a music-based party game that involves listening to iconic songs from the past century and placing them in chronological order along a timeline. Each player guesses when songs were released, working to create a timeline based on musical history. The game doesn’t require players to know the exact year of release; they simply need to determine whether each song was released before or after the previous one.

To add to the fun, Hitster integrates with Spotify for direct music playback, and there are several game variations to suit different groups and interests. Players can swap cards and even steal from others, adding strategic twists. The first player to correctly place ten songs wins the game and the title of "Hitster".

We had agreed with Colin that Hubby and I would come home at 11pm at the earliest, and we actually only returned at 11:30pm. We were allowed to say hello briefly, in an un-embarassing way, but then had to retire ;-)

During the short time (I had overdone it a bit in favor of the stacked dishes I put in the dishwasher) I experienced a good-humored group of young people, and that made me happy. 

My father would never have allowed this, firstly it would have been too much to ask him to make his house available, and secondly the noise would have driven him mad. But in fact it was only loud for another 45 minutes, then Colin and the local friends accompanied the other guests to the train station. 

So what were we doing during that time?

We had dinner at a burger / skewer place (how very un-vegan of us. I also had a glass of Prosecco) and went to see a movie. It was sort of the Swiss version of Beverly Hills Cop, and it was good fun. 

The next morning Colin and the overnight guest cleaned up the aftermath of the party.

Then the overnight guest left with his motorbike you're allowed to drive at age 16. (Not unhappy Colin hasn't shown interest in doing the same thing so far). When we saw his friend start the engine and drive off, I teared up. They have been playing hockey together for a good ten years, and they literally met when they started elementary school. Now they're almost grown-up!

Just like that, the birthday celebrations were over. BTW Colin's birthday was in September, he just had trouble finding a date where he didn't have practice or a match, and where all of the invites were available. Teenagers are busy people!

I can't even remember my own 16th birthday - can you? How do / did your 16-year olds celebrate?