Birthday Party in Avignon, Canadian Style

As we planned for our year in France, one perceived side benefit was foregoing the traditional birthday party with all the stresses associated with planning and executing the perfect party.  How naive of us to think that we could pull that off.  


Having managed to successfully organize Lily's birthday in December, Virginia and I began the process of coordinating Grace's birthday party, set for Saturday, January 15th.  By beginning the planning early, we felt we were in great shape.  Our plan was a simple one, accomplished by parents all over North America every weekend.  We decided to go with the trusted standby "Lunch and a Movie".  Lunch at a local pizza joint and then walk to the movie.  How simple it was going to be.  


We were in a good place the day before the party as 11 of Grace's classmates had let us know that they were coming to the party.  Just as we were heading out for dinner at a friend's place on Friday night, I decided to double check with the theatre to make sure everything was a go.  As I looked through the paper to find the theatre's phone number I noticed that the movie times that in the brochure that was given to me two weeks ago were different from what was posted in the paper ( The theatre has a weekly Cinekid program that shows old animated movies at a reduced rate).  The 2 o'clock showing of A Bug's Life was annuler.  There was a 4:15 showing of the movie but that left almost three hours of down time between our lunch and movie.  If you have read Virginia's post entitled Bordelique detailing our first birthday party in France, you will understand the stress we felt on Friday night.  


By the time the sun came up on Saturday morning we had formulated a new plan.  The weather has been glorious lately so we decided we would take the city bus for 15 minutes to a large park in the suburbs.  I proceeded to type up the new itinerary of events that we would hand out to the parents as they dropped off their kids.   I also made a sign up sheet, to ensure that I had the phone numbers for all of the parents as well as what time they were going to pick up their child (I structured the timing so that parents could pick their children up at the original time).  As Virginia was cutting out the eleven copies of "Le Nouveau Plan", she began to laugh uncontrollably and said "They are going to think we're crazy".  


At 12:30 two stressed parents and two excited girls waited at the restaurant for the children to start arriving.  As they came in, I quickly brought the parents over the the sign up table, handed out the new plan and in my best french explained the annulation of the movie and went through the itinerary.  More than one mother made the comment "whoa, you canadians are sure organized".  Another mother while looking at her handout said " Ah this is great, this afternoon when I am having tea and wondering what Marie is up to, I can just pull out the plan and check the time and know exactly what she is doing".
The invitees arrived over a period of about 15 minutes, so it was a little stressful having the 5 - 8 early arrivals on the sidewalk running up and down beside the road yelling at the new arrivals as their parents dropped them off.  Antoine, the owner of our local cafe said "Oh my goodness" as the crowd of girls ran and screamed past him.  When I told him that we were having a Canadian stlye birthday party in France,  he replied "Is there such a thing?" and with a heartfelt "Bon courage" ducked back into his cafe.


By 12:50 all of the children had been dropped off and the party began.  We decided that 30 minutes was about the maximum time we could spend in the restaurant and everything went off without a hitch.  Of course 13 seven and eight year old girls in a small restaurant can make a fair bit of noise but as we left the owner said how well they had behaved.  I was a little flustered from all the noise so as I had the group of girls out on the sidewalk ready for the next part of the day I quickly told them that I was a teacher back in Canada and I was going to run the party like a class outing.  I also added that if they didn't listen to me I would phone their parents to have them picked up.  I can't imagine saying that at a birthday party in Canada but I had to ensure that the chaos I have witnessed at other gatherings did not happen on my watch.


With the rules of engagement understood the 15 of us walked par deux the 10 minutes to the bus stop.  Once we arrived at the park, Virginia and I finally relaxed and enjoyed the sunshine.  For the girls it was a great time as they played happily for an hour.  As we watched them playing, we thought that it was too bad that their school does not have a playground for them to enjoy everyday.


We walked back to the bus stop, singing french songs along the way while I quizzed them on their two times tables.  Back in the city we had another walk of 20 minutes or so to the movie theatre.  There, we enjoyed "A Bugs Life" though I must have been quite tired as I didn't understand much of it.
As the 15 of us exited the theatre bringing an end to the party after 6 hours of fun, the group of parents waiting spontaneously broke out in applause for the two foreigners that had successfully pulled off the "French Birthday Party, Canadian Style"
Our friend Benoit came over, shook my hand and said "Bon travail, très originale et très exotique".


The four of us headed home with one of Grace's friends that we had agreed to drop off.  We were all quite tired but I smiled and felt so incredibly happy as Sabah leaned over to Grace and said "un anniversaire super".