Celebrating Jamie’s 32nd Birthday

Jamie is his mom’s little Christmas Eve Eve baby with a December 23rd birthday, and over the years we have found many benefits to his birthday being right before Christmas. 🙂

By this point in the holiday season, we actually welcome the day where “no Christmas activities are allowed” and we focus solely on Jamie’s birthday! Because this day is usually full of birthday fun, I am forced to make sure ALL of my ducks are in a row and tie up loose ends for his birthday and Christmas by the 21st-ish; I always say that if things aren’t done by the evening of the 22nd (even grocery shopping!), it ain’t happenin’!

We also enjoy this day because we’ve usually been able to spend it with family since we were typically with one of our families by this point for Christmas.

December 23rd is a day I immensely look forward to. 🙂 He is so easy to celebrate because he has no expectations and enjoys anything I plan for him. 

Here’s a look at what his special day looked like this year. 🙂

For dinner, I invited his parents, brother, my parents, and my grandmother (who adores the absolutely snot out of Jamie!) to come over. Since I’d be feeding a crowd but wouldn’t have much time to cook due to other plans that day, I originally decided to just order food for everyone from a restaurant and bring it home.

This was going to get quite pricey though, so I decided to serve something that could be made ahead of time. I knew we’d be going right from a day-date to eating with everyone home, so I needed it to be something that could be ready almost immediately once we got home for dinner. Our friends Amy and Beau actually served a big dinner charcuterie board when we were at their home a couple of months ago, and we all loved it! It fostered great conversation while everyone served themselves around a big table.

I literally pulled up IG on my phone and had my Walmart Grocery order open on my computer, and selected items for the board based on items I saw on lots of IG accounts. So easy!

On the morning of his birthday, I pulled up those IG accounts again and took an hour or so to put this together on a large cutting board. It was a lot of work, but I REALLY enjoyed it! I then loosely covered the board with tinfoil and made room to tuck it into the fridge for later that night. Dinner was mostly done by 9 a.m. Woohoo!

Jamie worked a half day that day, which gave the girls and me time to get his little “party” together. They always pick a theme (something we accidentally started when Hadley was 2!), and this year they decided together to do a football theme. Jamie and I share an Amazon account, so I ordered everything from Target instead so he wouldn’t know the theme ahead of time like he usually does. 😉

Big mouth Sadie spoiled it though a few days prior by telling Daddy that she couldn’t wait for his football party! *palm to forehead*

I’m obsessed with the balloon pump thing I bought for Hadley’s birthday party, so any chance that I can get it out and decorate with balloons, I hop on! The girls actually blew up all the balloons, and then I tied them and put them on this little balloon strip thing. So easy!

Once Jamie got home around lunchtime, we rested for an hour or two before his parents arrived to babysit. I then told him to put on workout clothes and get ready to go climbing! He’d been to High Point, our city’s new climbing gym, once prior when he took Hadley and Sadie, and he’s been wanting to go back without kids to climb.

I’d been wanting to try it too, so this was the perfect day to do it!

We had SO much fun! It was way harder than either of us anticipated and we both worked up a good sweat! It was pretty addicting, so now we’re just waiting for our next chance to go back. After about 90 minutes straight of climbing (we were POOPED!), we hopped in the car to grab some smoker pellets from Walmart (to smoked his two Christmas hams) and then headed home to the family. 

We saw this sight when we pulled up! They were all outside watching Hadley “learn to drive” in her Papaw’s two-seater convertible on our street. LOL.

Once we got home and everyone arrived, they mingled with a drink while I whipped together two soups that I slaved over, and by slaved over I mean popped up the pull-top on some Progresso cans and warmed them up on the stove top. 🙂 I thought small, warm bowls of soup would be a good addition to the charcuterie. 

These are some of my favorite pictures to snap when hosting people. Just people chatting and hanging around. I love this. 

I’m very grateful that my parents and Jamie’s parents get along so well. My in-laws also humor my grandmother well, who is a total spitfire and has zero filter. 😉

I’d ordered him a little football cake online from Publix a few weeks prior and picked it up with the girls earlier that morning. We love Publix cakes, and we love this guy!

More: Jamie’s cow party, puppy party, and dinosaur party

Let’s chat!

 Are you into rock climbing? Have you ever been to a climbing gym? What did you think?! PS: High Point has locations in Huntsville, Birmingham, Memphis, and Chattanooga.