Celebrate Your 40th Birthday In (your Own) Style!

By: Mandy Weckford

If you are going to be turning 40 in the next couple of months, you need to start planning - or making sure someone else is planning - the festivities. Your fortieth birthday is an occasion to be celebrated. You don't have to have a party, if you don't want to, but you do have to do something special. Over the past few years, what seems like hundreds of my friends and relations have hit 40, so, if you're not sure what you'd like to do, here are a few suggestions.

My sister Olivia is a connoisseuse of wine and for her 40th we organised a wine-tasting party at my house. An expert brought some bottles and talked us through the 'legs' and the 'nose' of each one. Needless to say, we didn't spit anything out - but we did learn quite a lot and, as our present to her, my husband and I sent Olivia on a wine-tasting tour of the Abruzzo region of Italy.

My husband's best friend had a murder mystery party. Josh is shy and doesn't like large gatherings but he wanted to do something different from the usual get-together-and-chat with his three or four close friends. We all came in costume and stayed in character until the end of the evening, when the murderer was exposed. A bit of acting can be a lot of fun.

Born in 1963, my friend David threw a 60s theme party for his 40th birthday. We all wore groovy costumes - flares, hippy shades, kaftans, garlands, mini-skirts, peacenik sandals, headbands - and had a high old time bopping away to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Small Faces. He had videos of some TV shows from the Sixties, which we watched when we flagged, and 1960s party food, including a mean prawn cocktail.

About three months before she turned 40, my friend Karen discovered that her partner was seeing another woman. Her confidence took a bit of a knock and, to build it back up, we arranged a lingerie party for her birthday. We all needed a bit to drink before really got into the spirit of trying on sexy underwear but then we had a great laugh!

The idea of giving a dinner party for twenty guests fills me with horror but my friend Rob did this in the ideal way: he hired a professional chef to come to his house and cook for us, in front of us. Rob is a real foodie and having all this sumptuous fare rustled up in his very own kitchen was a dream come true.

A magician is an excellent addition to any party. At my friend Jason's 40th birthday party, the magician took my ring and made it vanish. A second later, without him having moved at all, it appeared tied on to his shoelace!

Before long I'm going to be forty myself and I've decided to go to New York, with my husband, for my birthday. I have never been there but I just get the feeling I want to be in the Big Apple to greet the big four oh. I want to see all the sights, check out the art galleries, watch a show on Broadway, do some shopping and soak up some of the energy of that great city. This seems a pretty cool start to my fifth decade.

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To find more tips and advice about 40th birthday parties, celebrations & presents, have a look at our 40th birthday website.

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