Goodie Bag Discoveries

This picture was not taken at my niece's birthday party. It was taken at my oldest nephew's birthday bash. There was no play dough but it was still a wonderful time. 

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks," is the saying. I would have been inclined to agree with this statement but my niece's birthday party on Saturday changed my mind.
Party planning was never, ever something I particularly excelled at. In fact,  I never threw any parties. Even in college, when my roommates and I had friends over, I played a minor role in the whole  event planning process. My roommates were the ones who would plan menus, shop for groceries and cook dinners. I just washed dishes.
I thought my aversion to parties would last forever. But when my sister became a mother suddenly everything changed.
Traditionally, birthday parties in my family were an informal thing. We didn't do party themes, or elaborate decorations. The person whose birthday we were celebrating got to pick the dinner for the evening and a birthday cake. Sometimes my mother would wrap some pastel colored crepe paper streamers around the person's chair. Dinner was eaten, the candles on the birthday cake were blown out, presents were distributed and that was a wrap.
The one thing that sticks out, however, were the goodie bags. When my sister and I were kids,  my mother would give everyone, including herself, a colored paper sack filled with goodies. There would be bubble bath, magazines, books, CDs, candy. We loved them.
Turns out so do my sister's three children.
Nowadays, birthday parties in our household are slightly more elaborate-at least for my niece and nephews. There have been Minecraft-themed soirees and superhero parties. When my niece turned one years old, we were all instructed to wear pink to her party.
My mother and I make trips to Party City in Santa Fe for plastic tablecloths, paper plates and cups. And, of course, there are the goodie bags. When it came to selecting party favors to give to my niece and nephews, I started out as just an advisor for my mother. She would hold up some plastic trinket or  package of candy and I would give her my opinion on it.
Then, I got into the action myself. Turns out selecting and purchasing goodie bag items is just as fun as getting them. Things I never paid much attention to before -miniature rubber duckies, a paper airplane kit, packages of organically made chapstick-are no longer pieces of random clutter in front of checkout stalls. They are small treasures to be socked away like a pirate's buried loot before being unearthed and presented to the three kids in paper grocery bags.
You may think these favors are just used once and then tossed away but they hold a far greater worth. For my nieces' birthday party on Saturday, my mother pulled out tubs of play-dough to give to my niece and nephews in their goodie bags. The catch was they needed to make something with their play-dough and the adults needed to guess what it was. My youngest nephew flattened out his neon green and yellow dough into what looked like a psychedelic fried egg. Meanwhile, my niece combined her black and neon pink dough and formed a dish with two balls. My oldest nephew was the most articulate-he carefully cut out a wafer-thin blue disk before creating a small hill of lighter blue play-dough on top with a stripe running down the middle.
We all starting shouting out guesses was to what everything could represent. The kids starting giggling and then the adults starting laughing. By the end of party, we all had tears of laughter running down our faces and all the kids' play dough had a muddied looking appearance.
I left the party with a glow. Not just because of all the laughing but from the discovery that even adults can learn new things. After all this time thinking I was a bit of an old dog, too set in my ways to change my party-pooper behavior,  I realized I have become a bit of a party animal.