As many states in the U.S. are reopening, your state may still be in lockdown or you hesitate to venture out. Whatever the reason for not being able to meet up and celebrate a birthday or other special occasion, the celebration doesn’t have to be postponed. You can still push through with the celebration online with this guide.
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Choose Your Platform
There are several online platforms to use for your virtual celebration. While Zoom is a popular choice, Facebook and YouTube are catching up on the videoconferencing game with their live-streaming features. There are a few differences between these platforms, so choose the one that everyone who’s going to be at the virtual celebration is most familiar or comfortable using.
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Prepare the Food and Drink
The host of the virtual celebration usually only goes as far as sending out the digital invites and hosting the video call. Since it won’t be a gathering in the same physical space, the “partygoers” can agree on enjoying a common type of food and drink to create a semblance of unity and togetherness. Still, if you want to make the event feel like you’re in the same space and enjoying the same beverage, perhaps one of your troupe can brew some beer at home, then find a way to deliver a couple of glasses worth to the people in attendance. Make a sufficient batch with quality ingredients like Hallertau blanc hops, so there’s enough to go around.
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Prepare Greeting Cards
Pictures are a good way to commemorate the occasion, but a bunch of selfies made into memes or just selfies from well-wishers can be a bit tacky and lacking in sentiment. Thanks to some enterprising greeting card companies, it’s possible to create and send a more sentimental memento, such as an electronic greeting card. There are a lot of e-greeting cards that you can send for free to express your appreciation and congratulate the celebrants on their birthday, engagement, marriage, newborn baby, or any other momentous occasion. What’s unique about these e-greeting cards is that some can be animated and include music and audio.
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Prepare some Activities
The host of the virtual celebration should keep the event lively and fun, no matter the occasion. The host can do this by having some activities prepared; as a virtual celebration is broadcast and shared to a number of people, there can be awkward silences.
To avoid having the call quickly turn into a boring online event where people wait on each other to speak, whoever is hosting should also take on the role of an active “moderator.” The host should “guide” attendees to do stuff like give short speeches to show their appreciation for the celebrants, then move the call along to playing games or viewing prepared slideshows that pay tribute to the celebrants.
If the lockdown has taught us anything, it’s that celebrations for important events like birthdays, anniversaries, baby showers, or whatnot are still possible, thanks to a bit of creativity and a lot of help from technology.
