My daughter got the cake from Publix, and they provided a free "smash cake", so we have the apparently now traditional "birthday child making a mess" photos. I was expecting a large decorated cupcake sort of thing, but it was basically a single layer of a normal cake, fully decorated like the large cake. We sang Happy Birthday and placed it in front of Delaney, who dutifully and cautiously poked at it.
She tentatively mucked around in the frosting, licked her fingers, thus achieving the required frosting-smeared face, licked her hands, smacked her lips, and then began squishing a handful of cake between her fingers and dropping chunks on the floor, at which point her mother put an end to it. It was not wildly hilarious and a priceless memory. It was just messy. I just don't GET this "tradition" - I even Googled it to see where the hell it started, and why, and didn't find a source.
But apparently "everybody" does it now, and it's FUN! and bleh. A one year old can make enough of a mess with a single slice of birthday cake, is it really necessary to waste an entire cake? While it's not quite as hideous as the other Festive Cake Atrocity - the "tradition" of the bride and groom smashing cake into each other's faces - it's nearly as stupid IMHO.
This "Priceless Childhood Memory!!" was not worth the extensive wet paper towel cleanup she was forced to endure when it was over. Which reminds me, I need to wash the cover of the portable high chair.
Grumpy Grandma Says Harrumph. And Get Offa My Lawn!
P.S.: A Google of this topic revealed that there are parents who pay to have a smash cake professionally baked, and pay a professional photographer to shoot the smashing. (The good news is that the recession really MUST be over!) What probably began as a spontaneous "Oh, 'cute' pictures of a kid making a mess!" is now a friggin' business model. Those poor kids! Their childhoods are being stage-managed right from the start.
5 comments:
Birthday Balloons -- YES. For Eldlest Grandchild's first birthday, her mother ordered enough helium filled balloon to actually fill the ceiling space of their (fairly small) TV room, and each child present took a balloon home, and there was an embarrassing number left over.
But it was very effective as decorations, but I believe that the biggest fun was the actual delivery, with the delivery person trying to get the balloons from the van to the house without any excaping into the wild blue yonder.
Gae, in Callala Bay
Hah! I made a last minute run to the nearest Publix for ice and balloons! I ran to the produce dept, grabbed the manager, and announced a Balloon Emergency! He dropped what he was doing and was ON IT. It was windy, and I lugged a bag of ice and the small fistful of balloons to the car and tried not to lose either. But they were a big hit with the babies, and fortunately (I guess) we had just enough for the smallest people to each take one home.
I'm with you on the whole "Waste for the Sake of Waste" trend, but the picture of your GD trying out her cake is cute. Have you heard of the "Trash the Dress" craze? I've reached the "GET OFFA MY LAWN!" phase of my life, too, and I can't imagine that someday, those same couples aren't going to have a furnace go out in the middle of the night or some other kind of emergency and not wish they could get all that wasted money back.
And yes, I do realize that I'm starting to sound just.like.my.mother, and it's scaring the living bejesus out of me.
Brenda.
Oh, the pictures are cute but they'd have been just as cute with her mucking around in a SLICE of cake - the idea that now we provide a baby an entire cake to destroy just seems silly to me, but hey, it was free! Don't get me started on Trash the Dress. ;-)
When the girls were tiny, like Miss D, we always let them "eat" their own slice. I agree that it is a little on the weird side to let them destroy a whole cake!
She is very adorable. and she did have a good time, too. Thank for sharing the big Birthday!
Lella
Post a Comment