Special birthdays in lockdown

I was seventy last year, in October. My daughter arranged for balloons to be delivered and an afternoon tea to be delivered, all the way from Canada, where she was living at the time. I ordered myself, a birthday cake for work. Also had a zoom call with my son and daughter. I was able to go out for a meal at a hotel.

I turned 60 last April. I had had all sorts of plans but in the event DH and I went DH for a walk in the woods, he cooked me a nice meal and we Skyped with DD and family.

I was 70 in August and we managed to get away as it was between lockdowns. Just the 3 of us in our bubble spent the actual day in a beach hut with a take away breakfast plus fizz. My daughter was 40 last week so we joined her for pizza, fireworks and fizz. She lives alone but we had a lovely time in our bubble.
A friend was 70 last week so I made her an afternoon tea of cheese #cone, plain scone, strawberry jam, blueberry muffin and lemon drizzle cake.
We all loved getting cards and flowers on the day with promises of lunches/ afternoon tea/ garden meet ups/ weekends away when we can do it. It is the daring which matters most

That should say caring

As a family, we've all had birthdays either in complete lockdown, or during various restrictions.
All rather more lowkey than would be normal.
On February 20th, it was my 75th birthday.
Our DD arranged a zoom link up with family & friends, with a talk & photos of the 1940's from a local historian.
It could have been boring, but he made it very interesting, quite light hearted, considering it covered bits from the war & from the 1947 floods, All connecting the parts of Norfolk, where I was born & brought up, & Cambridgeshire, where we've lived the past 52 years.

We had our golden wedding in Dec 2020 and its my 70th in June this year. Fingers crossed.

I share a birthday with DGD1 who was 10 in April. She was in NZ at the time. We did our best with the 12 hour difference. They zoomed at 0700 an we wished each other a happy birthday, opened our presents and she went to bed! Rather sad day!

My DD will be 40 in two weeks' time. She was planning to invite DH and me, and her brother and sister-in-law to Majorca for the weekend. She loves family get togethers and parties and is dreading spending her birthday on her own. She is single and lives many miles away from the rest of us. We will "meet up" via Zoom on the day and we are ordering cocktails and a birthday tea to be delivered to us all to share online. I dread the moment when we have to end the Zoom session and feel miserable at the thought of her being left on her own for the rest of the evening.

We’ve had “special” events too but I’ve always hated celebrations. Quite happy for others to celebrate however just not for me or my husband.

My husband was 70 2 weeks ago.
We had a family zoom with our 2 sons dil s and 4 grandchildren in the morning to open presents. I set up a whats app group of friends and family and asked them to send in video wishes which my granddaughter (age10) made into an iMovie (app on iPhone) with help from our son. There were 24 little videos. Our other son put together a photo selection with music of photos through the years. It was hard photographing old photos and sending them by iCloud. His cousins - one in Australia- sent me old pictures via email.
My husband was in bits - he absolutely loved it all and will treasure it. He has watched it several times since.
In the afternoon we had another family zoom with quizzes set by the grandkids (10 &7 - 10&7) one of which was questions about grandad! We then sang happy birthday and lit the 70 candle I put on top of his tiffin cake and we opened champagne here.
My son also arranged a meal from Sam’s chop house in Manchester which was delivered on the Sunday lunchtime which we cooked in the evening -rib eye steak etc. During the day 4 sets of neighbours called with cards and gifts on the doorstep with social distance. Our family don’t live near one son lives abroad and the other is an hour away.
My husband absolutely loved his day and said he thought he had had more attention than he might have had ordinarily. He has said the day has come and gone and there is no need to celebrate it again when we’re out of lockdown. When we can manage to get together as a family we will drink a toast with champagne and remember the lovely lockdown birthday