On party decorations for a Tween/Adult Bat Mitzvah

My daughter's bat mitzvah is coming up in five months and I've been looking for decorations. I started by doing searches in Flickr, the photo site for parties and bat mitzvahs. I also did Google images searches. I also roamed the streets of downtown Chicago during my lunch hour looking at store window displays. That's where I found the most inspiration.

Nothing scares me more than having one of those bat mitzvah parties with large, neon colored table centerpieces of a soccer ball or movie clip. I mean really... YUCK. That said -- my 12-year-old just loves the 80s neon colors and is all about big and loud. So, how do we come to some agreement?  

Last week I was out on State Street in Chicago and wandered into the new Anthroplogie retail store. Anthropologie is one of my favorite places to look around. I love the sense of design in the housewares, clothing and I especially love their store displays. They are so creative and whimsical. 

 

At the Chicago store, there was a display made of plastic bottles that had been cut and spray painted to look like flowers.  They were tied to string and hanging from the ceiling over a large table of housewares. Wow. Just beautiful. 

Trying to Keep the Bat Mitzvah Real

My oldest daughter is 12 and a half and five months away from her Bat Mtizvah. The whole experience has been strange and interesting... just the thought of being old enough to have a daughter preparing for this rite of passage makes me feel a bit, squirmy. I had one myself. It was a bit of an obligation. I tried to give my daughter a choice, but honestly, I'm not sure whether she thinks she had one. I hope she feels that way. I will have to ask her. 

The preparations are really scant so far. We've reserved the space for the service -- it is at the community center where we go every Sunday for a family service. It's a beautiful room and meaningful to us. We've reserved the place for the public celebration of her achievement -- it's at a hotel. Not my first choice. I prefer a more intimate location with more interesting architecture, but to my lovely tween, it seems grown-up and glamorous. For me, it is more convenient -- I have just one person to talk to there for food, drinks, tables, chairs, silver, china, glassware, etc. We still have much to do and I've decided to start this blog I've been thinking of for... a few years?!... to document our experience and thoughts about it. I'm hoping I continue it after the big event, as I've been meaning to do this for a while. I'm doing it in part to keep track of our ideas and thoughts... and in part as a remembrance for my daughter. Maybe it'll help a few others out there, as well.

How do we want to recognize and celebrate this rite of passage? Writing it down should help in finding direction and making decisions. I hope. I am trying to keep it focused more on the the joy and our love for her and less on the party and all of its accouterments. Funny, I myself have not been to a b'nai mitzvah in many years, though we have a few coming up. I've heard that they've gone a bit haywire -- in terms of themes and cost. I don't want to go there. Don't want to get caught up in the gimmicks, as tempting as they will be to the tween crowd. Onward.