Anna’s Birthday Party – Part Deux
[Written 29 December 2012]
We can’t possibly fit my family and Finnur’s family and our closest friends into our house at the same time unless we can have people sit out in the garden – which is not really a possibility in December. We’ve therefore opted to do a birthday celebration with Finnur’s family on Christmas Day (which is Anna’s actual birthday), and then a party for my family and some friends at a later date. This year the ‘later date’ became Boxing Day (aka ‘The Second Day of Christmas’ in Icelandic).
To keep things simple, we invited people over for a brunch/lunch at noon which meant that prepping started the evening before (apple crumble and pineapple cheesecake), and we had to get up at a pretty early hour to clean and keep on cooking and baking.
Here are some pictures from the party:
Having already tried my hand at a ‘proper’ chocolate cake the day before, I felt it was fine to opt for easy way out this time. I used half of this package in the new cake-form Anna got from her grandparents the day before.
As a nod to Anna’s US citizenship I made this ‘fluffy american pancakes‘ recipe times six (and substituted in a bit of whole wheat, and used more milk).
Finnur by the table just before we invited people to start eating. As is also customary for any large party we host, the first guests to arrive got the ‘honor’ of helping us finish setting everything up, which is this case included cutting melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, and kiwis.
People crowding around the table.
A pretty packed living room.
Baldur, who’s also nine years old.
Pétur, Signý and Fannar.
The older kids crowded into Anna´s room, while…
… the younger generation stuck to Bjarki’s room.
Chatting by the table.
Finnur made a bit of coffee…
… and we added the desserts to the table. Then there was birthday singing, yet again!
Anna being sung to.
Clearing away the smoke… We were running a little low on cake-decorations, but we did manage to give the horse an eye, a mouth, some hair, hoofs and a number. 🙂
After the singing, it was time to devour the dessert! 🙂
Our guests left shortly before 3 pm, and I pretty sure some of them were headed to a second party that day. Thankfully, we had nothing scheduled, so the rest of the day passed in relative peace and quiet. 🙂