The Studio 54 of children's parties

Manny Pacquiao wasn’t the only one to reach the magical number seven recently. My daughter Isobel celebrated her seventh birthday party last week, an event that has as much significance here as “Sweet 16” does in the States.

I am told that seven is a very important birthday for Filipinos but nobody, when pressed, seems to know exactly why. There is speculation that it has to do with Chinese beliefs and the purported luck of the number seven; others say it’s a Catholic thing, because kids can receive holy communion at seven, while others claim it’s considered the “age of reason” in these parts. If seven is the age of reason here, though, I see a lot of local public and elected officials who still appear to be mentally stuck in kindergarten.

To be fair, we did not undertake the birthday plans ourselves. In fact, left to our own inattentive devices, us parents would have probably left the birthday plans to The Birthday Fairy, and hoped for the best. We’re not good party planners, you see. We attend them okay; we just can’t be relied on to throw them. It’s not part of our genetic makeup, I guess.

Fortunately, our Filipino aunt, former caterer and restaurateur Lisa Alvendia, had some ideas and we more or less allowed her to take the ball and run with it, much as you would allow your virtual helpers to run the show in Café World (a Facebook application that my young daughter coaxed me into joining; I find its McJob qualities vaguely reminiscent of my high school employment history, and therefore prefer the Zen-like qualities of Farmville. Though they do not allow you to grow, um, alternative crops in Farmville).

But that, of course, did not leave us parents off the hook. There are a thousand nagging details to attend to when holding a Big Seven party. Ordering food and hiring entertainment are just two of them, we learned. Who knew? Well, sure, we’ve attended other kids’ parties here — colossal, Desert Storm-scale affairs held in hotel ballrooms, which made our efforts seem like glee club rehearsals in Lilliput. But we’re pretty sure those people hire planning committees consisting of dozens of underemployed 20-somethings with Starbucks fetishes (no, not bloggers) and abundant energy, as well as an ability to convince themselves that this is all really worth it.

That last part was the one that kept tripping us up. When did turning seven become such a huge, major, ginormous deal? Yes, we know it’s important to the kids, but isn’t this all just cultural conditioning? A vicious circle in which kids hold mega-parties and invite other kids who then blabber about it for days to their parents, who then feel guilty and wonder how to get in touch with the same face painters and salon specialists and tightrope walkers and snake handlers for their kids’ party?

Yup, pretty much. In fact, I clearly recall that my childhood parties were much less epic in dimension. For my seventh shindig, I recall I had some school chums over to the house, where my parents had (thoughtfully) provided a cake with an arrangement of candles. After blowing these out, my parents told us to go outside in the backyard and play until it got dark. Whoo-hoo!

So you can see how the indoor waterslides and jugglers and fire-eaters that make regular appearances at Manila kids’ parties might seem to me a little, er, excessive. 

But that’s neither here nor there. We were committed to the Big Seven party thing, so we girded our checkbook and let the fun commence.

It was decided that we would hold the party at a nice, low-key, inexpensive venue. So naturally we rented out a restaurant at Manila Polo Club. The guests also had popcorn, cotton candy, dirty ice cream and a kiddie salon (through “donations” by Isobel’s lola, ninong and ninang). The theme of the party was every little girl’s perennial favorite: Barbie Princess. Since Filipinos demand some kind of Vegas-level “program” at every public event, we were fortunate to have my wife’s sister, actress Jenny Jamora, consent to don a blonde wig and greet guests as the “Queen of All Barbies.” Her assignation also involved holding kiddie games and monitoring kids while they waited for pony rides — an area that had turned into a pileup as bad as the LA freeway.

You see, since kids require entertainment, our aunt suggested renting horses and a kalesa to ferry them around for the three-hour party. (Again, it brought me back to my not-so-epic seventh: playing lawn darts in the backyard; not a horse in sight.) The kalesa and horse rental turned out to be a splendid idea, though: you pay by the hour, and kids love it. But we didn’t factor in the kids who would sneak back or cut into line for “seconds” or refuse to get of out of the kalesa for the next batch of kids. It got so bad our Barbie Jenny hostess took to assigning them numbers scrawled on scraps of paper, just like in a deli. It worked; they all got a ride.

After wandering around the polo grounds for 45 minutes in a daze, I sat down next to a six-year-old boy who was making faces at his baby sister. I asked if he had enjoyed the pony ride. “Yes, my daddy has a horse at home,” he said confidently, quickly adding, “but it’s not smelly like your horse.” I hastened to point out that it wasn’t my horse, that I didn’t in fact own a horse, and if I did, I would probably wash it on a regular basis. I was also tempted to ask what kind of horse shampoo his dad used, but decided against it.

Amidst all the preparations and check-writing, it should be pointed out that our daughter Isobel really did love the party — how could she not? — especially the games craftily prepared by Barbie Jenny. The “Barbie Project Runway” contest was a big hit, though not without its small psychological scars. The kids were asked to design a dress out of crepe paper of different colors and drape it on a girl “model.” It was great fun — until the judging portion, when the “designers” of one dress, sensing a flop on their hands, edged away from their model and headed for the dirty ice cream cart instead, leaving their hapless model draped in crepe, tears streaming down her cheeks. Later, for a “Pin the Diamond on the Tiara” contest, we watched little girls shriek at their blindfolded classmates with bloodcurdling intensity (“Left!! RIGHT!! No, RIGHT!!! LEFT!!!”) until one kid clapped her hands over her ears in baffled dismay. It all kind of reminded us of the shower scene in Carrie, and we prayed that no Paulinians were secretly telekinetic.

I swear, you never saw such an abundance of laughter, drama, tears, fears and frustrations — and that was just the month-long preparations for the party. After it was over, we surveyed what 30 to 40 kids had left behind in their wake — a green field of torn crepe, burst balloon fragments, spilled cake and popcorn, and a lot of spooked horses — and vowed never to do it again. Well, at least not until the 2016 elections.

When it was over, we were grateful to our Aunt Lisa for making the place look like a little girls’ version of heaven: flowers everywhere, cupcakes and theme table settings all left a lasting impression which I’m sure every little girl will remember long after the horse dung has dried.

Looking at the photos my wife had posted online after the event, a friend of hers in New York wrote: “Her party seems so decadent... It’s like the Studio 54 of children’s birthday parties.” That pretty much nails it.

Afterward, I asked Barbie Jenny if she was happy to take off the wig and go back to “being Veronica.” She flashed me a dazed smile. At least I think it was a smile.