The Circus is in Town: My 21st Birthday

I have always been fascinated with the circus, but not the circus of today. I much prefer the traveling circus, the circus where clowns were funny, lions jumped through flaming hoops and elephants were the main attraction. Okay I haven’t seen a proper circus before but I remember going to a similar circus in Wynberg as a child. It was a circus in a tent; we were greeted by the ringmaster and entertained by clowns, monkeys, dogs, snakes, elephants and horses. I still remember buying a huge bag of popcorn and enjoying every minute of the show while munching away.

I don’t know if many of you will remember this but many years ago SABC 3 use to show various circus and magic shows on Sunday afternoons. After Sunday lunch my father and I use to spend the rest of the day entrapped in a world of fantasy and entertainment. In 2010 The Great Moscow Circus was in Cape Town and I was lucky enough to score a free ticket from my aunty. My hopes for the show were high but I left there rather disappointed. The circus wasn’t in a tent, there were no animals, the clowns were boring and there was no magical atmosphere what so ever.

Most of my high school and College design work was inspired by the circus. It’s a great theme to run with as there is so much to it. Take a look at a couple of my circus themed designs:

So naturally for my 21^st theme I decided to go with… yes you guessed it a Circus theme. The party planning was an enormous task, and it was up to my mom and I to plan an awesome party on a small budget (as I am traveling to London for a year, blog post coming soon).

I had my party at home so that I could spend more money on the important things like décor, food and alcohol of course. We put a circus tent by the front door and had welcome shots for all the guests who arrived. The welcome shots were Apple Sourz accompanied with a sour worm.

The sweet table was also by the entrance and was filled with some of the yummiest candies, like candy floss, gum balls, chocolate marshmallows, popcorn, cupcakes and gummibears. Needless to say we had very little left over by the end of the night.

There was a jumping castle for the all the people who felt like being a kid again.

Bashews were a must at my party. Not only are they everyone’s most memorable childhood drink but the bright colours and glass bottles gave my party an extra edge.

We had a hubbly area which we decorated with bales of straw, colourful bean bags and red draping. This was by far my favourite section of the party.

The night came with a special surprise, a carnival games section. I wasn’t sure if my friends would enjoy it so I had to entice them with a prize, a bottle of Ponchos! Points were collected for each game and by the end of the night the points were tallied up and the winner was revealed which was Renaldo Da Silva. (He cheated though, and popped all the balloons with the tickets in it, not giving anyone else a chance to compete!)

The rest of the formalities followed including embarrassing yet touching speeches from my friends and family, with a beautiful song sung by my sister and her friend. The BLACKPANNDJAT gave me a wonderful surprise birthday gift, an iPod Touch and a charm bracelet. The charms represented my friendship with each member of the BLACKPANNDJAT.

One of the highlights of my night was definitely my Manchester United Ice cream cake and the ice cream fight that followed! Yes I picked out the design but I felt really proud trying to blow out the sparkles on the cake.

Good food, good drink, good music and great company. I couldn’t have asked for a better 21^st and a better bunch of friends and family to share it with!