My Aunt JoanJoan and I decided we wanted to do something special to celebrate my parents' twenty fifth anniversary so we put or heads together and started planning a party. My mother is a children's book author and my dad is the illustrator, so we thought we would make one of their books into the theme for the party--"A Magic Forest" with fairies, tree spirits, elves and goblins--what a perfect setting for a party.

When we were done listing family members and close friends we had about twenty guests.
We sent out cute invitations shaped like a little fairy. Inside were the details of place, date time and they would be expected to arrive at least an hour ahead to get into costume. My parents didn't suspect a thing when I asked them to show up at my house so I could use what I learned in my gourmet cooking class to fix them a fantastic anniversary dinner.

The make-up artist and costumer were already there when the guests began arriving. The men changed in the living room while the women used in my room to change. There was snacks and some Sebastiani wine to get the party atmosphere going until Mom and Dad arrived. We had a good time turning everyone into fairies, elves and goblins; getting ready for the party was almost as fun as the party itself. By the time mom and dad got there everyone was getting into their roles.


Mom and Dad came in and were completely dumbfounded when I answered the door bell in a fairy costume. The couldn't believe the way I had transformed my entire apartment, decorating it exactly like dad's illustrations. Most of the furniture into my spare room. Between the folding chairs and buffet tables were cardboard trees, giant brightly colored tissue paper flowers that I made myself and a dragon peeking out of his cave. Goose down and bits of cotton were strewn across the entire apartment lending it an etherial effect. Paper fairies danged from the ceiling from fishing wire. Some were held up by wires attached to wooden bases and decorated artficial flowers and ivy. My cat had a ball trying to knock them all down. They were delighted by seeing all their friends and family dressed up as characters from their book. It was like entering into another world.

We took them to the costumer and make-up artist who turned Mom into a fairy and Dad into an elf. We had a lot of fun watching dad trying not to laugh as the make-up artist applied his make-up.

The buffet dinner was served on silver platters in honor of their 25th. Mom and Dad are vegetarians so we catered to their taste. There was steamed vegetables , freshly made black bean burritos, artichoke souffle, shish kebabs, and eggplant stuffed with pignolias. . They loved it. There was fish, or roasted chicken for the meat eaters. After dinner we brought out a beautifully decorated cake. It had purple and white swirls in the whip cream frosting and mulit-colored sprinkles dusted on top. The filling was mom's favorite: strawberry.

We played games after mom and dad opened their gifts. Some of the fairies started a game of poker while some of the elves and goblins played Twister. Twister was even more hilarious because the costumes made it a little awkward for people to move. The best move was when Mom lost her balence and sat on top of Joan. I snapped a picture the moment it happened. Boy is that one worth a thousand words!

Aunt Joan had also hired a photographer who got many shots I missed while I was taking other pictures. The were so good mom and dad had some framed in the Magical Forest artwork. Everyone looked incredible, so we sent the a copy of the picture to all the guests.