J30 (The Party)

You should have seen the look on his face when he walked through the door.

One of the greatest blessings of my brother Joseph is his semi-blurness, which is always a blessing when you're trying to throw a surprise birthday party!

It turned out really well - there was a good amount of food (with killer chee cheong fun from Auntie Kim) and people enjoyed the music (thank you for the music, ABBA!)

The party started off a little awkward initially, as all parties do - not everybody knew everybody. There were friends from work, old friends and church friends there.

Everyone warmed up much more after the games - the underlying theme was a Hollywood one, because of my brother's interest in movie-making. Three teams were formed - team Dollywood, Jollywood (with Jo in it) and team Hollywood.

We played the Queen of Sheba game and my brother got to be the judge. Basically, I call out an adjective, and the teams send out a representative with the said adjective, although they do not know what the noun will be (ie. deepest... dimples or longest... breath). It was really funny towards the end when the groups had to send out the member with the sweetest... tongue, and they had to pay a compliment to my brother on his birthday!

The next game was Character lines, which is like Chinese whispers, but instead of speaking a message, the participants had to act it out down their row, and then the last person had to guess who the famous personality was. One of my brother's friends, Sean, did a really amazing Phantom of the Opera (that's him strutting his stuff in the top right corner).


The Character Lines game. That's my friend Jules in the middle bottom, acting out the Lion King (she's so going to kill me for putting up this picture!)

We then reconvened at home for the last set of games - Trivia! Basically, it was divided into two categories - movies, in keeping with the Hollywood theme, and Joseph trivia. It was really good 'cos people got to know facts about my brother which they otherwise wouldn't have known. (ie. Did you know that Joseph once got hit by a taxi on his was home from primary school in his excitement to try out the new Double Dragon game?)

(Oops. My Mum reads my blog. Er, this wasn't how I meant you to find out, Mum!)

Prizes were then handed out to the winning teams by my brother. The winning team, Jollywood, pipped everyone else by answering the last question (Who is handsomer, Joseph or his younger brother?) correctly. (Answer - Joseph, but only on his birthday.)


From the top, counter clockwise: Dollywood, the winning Jollywood team, and Hollywood.


Then it was time for the cake, which was an awesome sticky date pudding made by my brother's friend, Jeannie. (Remember that cake, Mum?) This was followed by the gift giving, and then a poignant time of sharing, which really blessed both my brother, and the people at the party.


That's a lotta candles. There were two remaining when my brother, in his old age, tried to blow them all out in one breath!

Fake gift (inset) and real gift (in ugly green box).

I got to give my gift towards the end of the party. On Thursday, when we went out for dinner - I gave him a set of Playstation games, only to find out that he was fasting from entertainment until the end of November. (*looks up into the skies* WHY??!!) But this was just a distracting gift from the actual one, which was in the green box.



To everyone who came for the party, thank you for honouring my brother with your presence, and also for being sporting enough to join in all the games. Here are some trivia goodies about the party:

J3O was meant to stand for Jo thirty. There is a similar logo on the envelope of the birthday card which I gave him on Thursday, which accompanied the two Playstation games. It's meant to be a premonition, but I'm not sure he picked up on it!

My brother really wanted yum cha that morning. He was (very) slightly disappointed that he got a surprise birthday party instead!

The colours blue, yellow and red were from the old TV3 logo back in Malaysia. What's the relationship between the two, you ask - three = thirty - Oh well, some relation! Hahaha! If you noticed, the napkins, and plates had the same colour theme.

All good things come to an end.

To Joseph, happy 30th birthday, dude. You are richly deserving of all the effort and planning that went into this party. I'm everything I am becaused I am loved by my family.

Now for the big Four-Oh?