Epic is a musical about The Odyssey. It’s very long and involved and has never been staged (except maybe on TikTok?). My kids and their friends are obsessed with it, so that became a birthday party theme for Silvie. Because of course it did.
As usual, my children’s expectations exceeded my skills, time, and budget. The biggest example of this was that they wanted a life-sized pinata of the cyclops, which they would all proceed to destroy. I tried explaining the sheer engineering challenges of this whole concept, but they would have none of it. Finally, inspiration struck…
A family brainstorm led us to the idea of using a dancing man as a base. I found one, along with a blower, which I later resold, on ebay. Then, I made a papier-mâché eyeball (with some assists on the decoration from the family) and filled it with marshmallow eyes from Spirit Halloween. The eyeball was too heavy for the blower to support, so we added some rope and a pulley at the top. This added to the fun because JC was able to use the pulley to raise and lower the cyclops, changing the challenge level for the various contestants.
Petra took on the set design challenge of creating a horse head and tail for the upper deck, a nod to the Trojan horse.
Petra also has been working on an animated adaptation called Epic: The Kids’ Show. It’s… pretty great, and it features lines like, [mug to camera] “Who do YOU think the gods will send?” She printed posters for each season to add to the decor, and one of the activities was showing the premiere of the first season (voicing and edits still pending).
My food choices weren’t anything to write home about, really, although I did put out a bunch of dolma. The cake was supposed to be the walls of Troy, with a baby being thrown off (“Give me that baby and I’ll yeet it off a tower” #iykyk).
The kids’ pals showed up in EPIC costumes, as per usual. These children love a theme.
As usual, there was a lot of just general hanging out and goofiness, including a river visit…
But, for once, the proposed “activities” were too irresistible. I mean, would you be able to not wack at this guy with a stick?
They also did Epic Karaoke, because they all know all the songs. They found a playlist and…I think did pretty much all of them.
As birthday parties go, this one was pretty lit.
Silvie’s birthdays, previously (each kid gets a birthday party every-other-year):
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