Conference turris::cooks

  Regardless of the general decorations, there's a mylar balloon that I've
seen which I think is a MUST.  It's a picture of the Grim Reaper and words
something like "I'm just here for the cake".  There are a bunch of other
really cute (to the non-birthday person anyway).  The party store in the
Shaw's Plaza in Nashua has them.

--Sharon

    Most Hallmark stores have an assortment of Over the Hill, balloons,
    banners, etc., but it would be nice to find something specific to
    the victim, perhaps hobby or job related...
    
    ed

So, you can always place a hemorroid cushion on the guest of honor's pillow.
And, if you can get a walker or a cane, leave that nearby, too.  Most balloon
boquet places have over the hill balloons, nice big black ones.

The last OTH party we had, one of the folks baked a black cake with black 
frosting.  It came out real good, and was very tasty (underneath all the black
dye was a yellow cake with buttercream frosting), but she did say that it 
took several hours to get the black stains off of her kitchen.

    The owner of the Hallmark store in Ayer, MA just had a 50th and was
    driven to work in a hearse wearing a black suit.  Party favors could be
    black armbands and food safe/black powder is available at cake
    decorating supply stores for coloring cake icing.  Black jelly beans
    are available also.  

let us not forget the cake:

bake a sheet cake.  Bake a second cake in a 9" x 5" loaf pan.  buy some
small figurines of:

	a swimmer, a skier, a race car driver, etc.
	an old man in a rocking chair

you can usually gimic these things up or use the yellow pages to talk to
cake decorating stores and see what they have.

Frost the sheet cake with a nicely flavored basic frosting (any flavor).
Diagonally across the middle of the sheet cake, place the loaf cake, from
which you have trimmed the square edges and sliced the top off the cake so
it will sit flush on the sheet cake.  Frost the loaf cake, forming a hill...
put the active figurines on one side of the "Hill" and put the old man in
rocking chair on the other side of the hill.  Voilla!  You have an
over-the-hill cake.  Decorate the hill with green "grass" clumps (decorator
icing, of course), etc.

Of course, female figurines may be used as appropriate.

    Black, white & silver balloons with matching streamers
    draped all over look good.  A big box wrapped up in
    "Over-the-hill paper" (Hallmark makes it, I think)
    full of goofy stuff like a bottle of Geritol, some
    of the OTH items sold at the cardstores, like the
    "Old Buzzard" mug my husband rec'd, books on sex for
    the older man, etc., etc.
    
    L-

    This is what they did to me on my OTHP:
    My wife gave each invited guest a page from a large scrapbook she found
    somewhere, and asked the guests to do something with the page.
    Some pasted photo's on their page, others drew cartoons, another wrote
    a poem, one embroidered a beautiful message on a page.
    Before the black day, my wife gathered all the pages and rebound them
    into the scrapbook. 
    Next week, I celebrate the 5th anniversary of MY OTHP    8-)......and I
    STILL enjoy looking through the book, and remember the fun.
    
    BTW.....there were 50 attendees at the party, too. 
    Not sure if that was a coincidence or not.
    
    					=-=-=-=-=-g=-=-=-=-=

    For my 50th, my husband had the florist create an arrangement of dead
    red roses and red carnations....  It was DEAD and yukkie, and tied with
    a big black bow!!!
    
    BUT IT WAS FUNNY! and we all had a good chuckle!!  He also had 2 signs
    made and put them out in front of the house, which stated "Honk for
    Marcia's 50th".  
    
    Since then, I have seen the black balloons, etc which are really great,
    I think!!  
    
    Several years before, I had the gal who decorated cakes at Paul's
    Bakery in Maynard do a cake which had a large hill, with a sweet young
    thing in a bikini on the left side of the hill/mountain and on the
    right side, there was a wrinkly old lady.... sagging, etc. etc.... 
    That would be great if the person is a female!!
    

    
    When my group had an OTH party for the supervisor, one of the guys
    I worked with got some very silver shiny (like mirrored) paper that
    had a cement like stick on the reverse side.  He wrapped the gift 
    in this and the manager had the HARDEST time opening it.  It was so
    fuuny that he couldn't unwrap his gift.
    
    It made him look old :)
    
    aud...
    

    I know I'm reading & replying late but had to share this.....
    
    On my mother's 50th (she has 5 daughters - ages range from 17-32)
    we hired a stripper....he is a chipendale dancer and he was 
    very classy and tasteful, even though it was X rated.  He even allowed
    us to videotape him for about 10 minutes of his show and take pictures.
    Unbelievably she was great....seemed to enjoy it tremendously (you
    can't do this to everyone).  Now she brags to all her friends that
    she has them beat for best gift for 50!  And this was a TOTAL surprise!

    Just remember 
    
    "Snow on the roof doesn't mean there's no fire on the hearth!"
    
    mj (55)