How To: Celebrate a Birthday in Isolation
Written by Mily Gu
How To:
Celebrate your friend’s birthday during lockdown
Birthdays, usually something that everyone looks forward to. Even though this time round things are a little different, it doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate your friend’s birthday anymore! Instead of going to each other's houses or spending time in the city, here’s how to celebrate a friend’s birthday in lockdown :)
The main goal of celebrating a friend’s birthday is to spend time with them, and this is especially important whilst we’re in lockdown. To do this, you could easily facetime them, hop onto houseparty or host your own zoom party!
Before you start, make yourself a small mug cake or bake yourself a cake (really up to you), because what’s a birthday without cake?
While you’re on the zoom, grab your cake, a candle and your voice and sing a somewhat laggy happy birthday song to your friend! Don’t forget to blow out the candle and eat some cake though.
At this point you can really do whatever you want on your call. Whether it’s just talking, playing Mafia (you just need one storyteller to have their eyes open the whole time), playing video games, etc. whatever your group of friends like to do together. But if you’re stuck, here are some things I recommend :)
1. Netflix Party
Everyone probably has this by now (if you don’t the link is below). Netflix Party synchronizes video playback and adds group chat to your favorite Netflix shows. Essentially, you can watch a show at the same time, so when someone needs to grab a drink refill you can pause and it’ll pause for everyone so no one gets left behind :)
Add it to chrome for free! https://www.netflixparty.com/
If you’re indecisive on what to watch, here are some Netflix recommendations by Shan from this issue! Go check it out here
2. Psych!
From the creators of Heads Up! Psych has a variety of categories which you and your friends can play together just by joining with the game code. Here’s how it works:
I’ll just explain one category to introduce the game. The “and the truth comes out” category is a bit similar to Cards Against Humanity. Someone will create a game and everyone else will join using the game code. You’ll need to put in your name (which you can put anything) but it is essential that you know who’s who. Once you’ve all joined, the game creator can then start the game.
The game will come up with different questions such as “If ____ got arrested, what would they most likely be arrested for?” “What is something weird that ___ collects?” “What is ___’s guilty pleasure?”
The game will sub each of your names in and everyone will have a chance to answer the question given. When everyone has submitted an answer, everyone’s answers will appear anonymously and you will need to pick which one you like best or is funniest (here’s where it’s similar to Cards Against Humanity). You get points if people pick your answer.
Other categories include ‘Movie Bluff,’ ‘Fact or Fiction,’ ‘Word Up! Switcheroo’ and more. In these categories, players must make up fake answers to real trivia questions to try trick their friends into thinking their answer is the correct one. Another way to play it is just to put in the funniest answer rather than actually trying to put in a legit answer (I personally think it’s more fun that way).
In some of the categories, there’s also an option to play with Ellen DeGeneres!
3. Crazy 8 or other Game Pigeon games
Game Pigeon, iMessage games, a great way to have fun and drain your phone battery. Game Pigeon offers a wide selection of minigames such as cup pong, darts, 8 ball, basketball, archery and more, but these can only be played by 2 people.
Crazy 8 is basically a version of Uno, and is available on Game Pigeon. All you need to do is make a groupchat, send the game, have everyone join and play!
4. Game
I always need to include this because I know there are many gamers at uhs but I’m also the most clueless about gaming. I’m sure you already know how to game with your friends so I won’t teach you how LOL. Some examples: Fortnite, Valorant, League, Among Us, COD, Minecraft, etc.
5. go old school
And lastly you can always make/buy your friend a card or birthday gift and mail it to them! Don’t tell them and surprise them when they receive something in the mail :) There’s not many opportunities for us to send stuff through the mail so take advantage of it!
I hope you now have some idea of how to spend a birthday during lockdown! Just remember the most important thing is to spend time with them and make sure your friends know how much you appreciate them :) We’re almost done with isolation and it’s the holidays soon, just a little longer! If there’s anything on your mind or if you need extra help with planning a lockdown birthday, feel free to send an email to ubiqueteam@gmail.com :) Good Luck!