French birthday parties

Yesterday morning, our friend Josette telephoned. I was at the supermarket. Walt talked to her, and she said she wanted to know if we had plans to be away or especially busy any time in the month of June. Josette is the woman who sold us the house we live in. She now lives in Tours, about 40 miles from us.

I happen to know that Josette will turn 80 on June 7. I remember the day because two other people I'm close to, one a friend from college and the other my sister's daughter, were also born on June 7. Josette's birth date is a piece of information I found in the deed to our house, which reveals a lot of information about the previous owners that you wouldn't expect to find in such a document.

So why did Josette want to know if we would be going away or having company in June? It's because she wants to come to Saint-Aignan and take a group of us out for lunch one day as a birthday celebration. It would be me and Walt, our across-the-street summer neighbors who live in Blois, and the neighbors at the end of the road who are about my age.

That's how it works in France. When it's your birthday, you organize a party or other event and you invite the people you want to celebrate with. And you foot the bill. I France, when you invite somebody au restaurant, you pay for it, and Josette told Walt she wants to invite us all to a restaurant.

It's so different from the way birthday celebrations are done in the U.S. I wonder how such a different tradition evolved.

A couple of years ago, our other friend Gisèle had a 75th birthday dinner for herself and invited half a dozen of us friends and neighbors. She went all out, cooking a big roast and lots of vegetables, along with hors-d'oeuvres and dessert. She planned to have dinner outside, but it rained that day, and we all had to crowd around her little dining room table. It was fun.

Also a couple of years ago, our across-the-street neighbors threw a huge party for themselves on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary. They invited 150 people for a catered, sit-down dinner under big tents outdoors. The party went from noon till the wee hours of the morning.

Twenty-five years ago, I knew a woman in Paris who was in her late 90s. Two or three times I was invited to the birthday lunches that she hosted for herself at her favorite neighborhood restaurants. She would pay for dinner for half a dozen people, and she would buy a pack of cigarettes for the occasion. We would all smoke a cigarette together after dinner.