How to Celebrate a 100th Birthday

A 100th birthday is certainly a reason for a party. When a family member approaches the century mark, it's time to start planning a celebration. There's no better reason to gather family, friends and neighbors than to honor one who has lived for 100 years.

Instructions

1. Enlist the help of a few friends or family members and start planning. Decide on a time and a location for the birthday party. Your location may depend on how many people you plan to invite, so create the guest list at this time. For a 100th birthday party, you may want to include neighbors, friends and extended family.

2. Prepare the invitations and send them about 4 weeks before the event. For 100th birthday open houses, some people even put an announcement in the local paper. You may want to include a note that states "no gifts please."

3. Plan for the cake, and keep it simple since you're probably expecting fairly large crowd. You could serve a sheet cake. Or, for something a little different, ask several people to bake two dozen cupcakes each. Aim for a wide variety of different flavors and arrange them on tiered serving dishes.

4. Set out snacks, especially if you're holding an afternoon reception. You may wish to serve ice cream, a few salty snacks and fruit. For beverages have punch, coffee, tea and water.

5. Hire or recruit musicians. Look over your guest list to see if anyone could help with the entertainment. Big band or folk music would add a nice touch to the birthday party.

6. Put together a photo timeline of the guest of honor's life. You might have to reserve more than one wall to display all the photos you compile. Use poster board and organize them by decade. Add captions or let the photos speak for themselves.

7. Arrange games if you wish, but be sure they are suitable for party goers of rather large age span. You may want to try charades based on different events in the guest of honor's life. Distribute a prepared history of his life to help with the game and to serve as a nice memento for your guests.

8. Have a guest book on hand so everyone can write down their well wishes or simply sign their name. Appoint a photographer to take pictures of all the attendees so you can make a scrapbook or photo album after the party.