Birthdays are big in our family. For one day you get to be King or Queen.

We always try to make our grandchildren’s birthday parties special. Grandma makes a birthday crown out of cloth that the kids wear during their dinner. The birthday crown is made of cloth and each grandchild proudly wears this hand-made crown.

Our family is addicted to homemade birthday cake. The birthday boy or girl gets to pick out their own birthday cake which either Mom or Grandma makes. My favorite is a cream cheese cake with chocolate crust and M&Ms sprinkled into the cake during the chilling process.

We have a set of twin grandchildren and our Daughter-in-law bakes them each a half cake on their birthday.

I think maybe on my next blog, I will share a recipe for my two favorite birthday cakes. Yum.

Of course, we always have birthday balloons printed for each birthday party.

Here’s a party idea that I remember from listening to Cheech and Chong. As a kid growing up in the seventies and listened to 8 track cassette tapes of George Carlin, Bill Cosby and comedy duo Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. My brother and I listened to these cassettes often before bedtime. listening over and over to the same silly stories told by these famous comedians.

One of my favorite stories came to me today as I was thinking about party ideas for kids. This story was told by Cheech and Chong. As the story goes, these two Hispanic comedians were trying to entertain little kids at a party. The idea that Cheech and Chong came up with was a “breath holding contest,” which was an attempt to put the kids to sleep. Cheech Marin tells the kids, “We are gonna see who can hold their breath the longest.” I can remember him counting out loud, “One, Two, Three, Four,” and so on. Then he would say, “OK, keep holding your breath, only another couple minutes.” As a teenager, I found this story and party idea amusing to the point that my brother and I would listen to it over and over.

Now I would not recommend this game or party idea today, but sometimes you wonder.

Recently my wife Brenda and I had a party at our home for our dance friends. Brenda and I ballroom dance and after a big dance showcase, we had all our friends over for some food and fun.

As an ice breaker we played this game called “Truth or Consequences.” Here’s how it works: each person introduces themselves to the other party guests and tells three things about themselves, two statements are true and one is not true. Tell a story about where you grew up or something significant you did in your past and then something false. The other party guests take turns guessing what is true and what is false. The person who guesses the falsehood wins one million dollars. Actually, the person who wins get to be the next contestant.

I found the game fun and entertaining and I learned lots of stuff about people I did not know. I found out that another guest was a child model and so was I, so we had something in common which I would have never know about her had we not played this game of “Truth or Consequences.”