Mysterious 16th Birthday

For Anna Catherine's 16th we celebrated with 21 friends for a Masquerade Murder Mystery Dinner Party. Guests received invitations with their characters information and the requirement to attend in formal attire, wearing a mask. We had not ever done anything like this or even attended a mystery dinner so we weren't quite sure how it would go but we decided it sounded like something different and hopefully a fun non-alcoholic party for teenagers. 17 girls and 4 guys came as willing 'victims'. At 5:00 they arrived for the photo shoot and appetizers during round 1 where they received their envelope with specific information that needed to be communicated to each masquerade guest during the appetizer hour. We concluded the first round with "So you think you can dance game" where the kids were divided into teams, given the name of a type of dance ranging from ballet and waltz to salsa, hip hop, and African tribal. They were given 10 minutes to come up with a 30 second dance routine but all dances had to be performed to the same song, "Move It". this turned out to be hilarious as you can imagine. Believe it or not the 'ballet' dance won and the guys performance of the 'robot' took second.

Dinner was time to discuss the clues for the all important second round in which one guest would be notified that they had been murdered. Serving a three course dinner and running the game/party would not have been possible on our own. One of the new single guys from our church just happens to be a chef and he willingly came to help. Nathan enthusiastically helped him in the kitchen from about 1:00 - 7:00! couldn't have done it without them.

After dinner, while we played 'Fantastic Movie challenge' (which was really a bust because we didn't know most of the movies), Steven, who played the character Sherlock Tracy, was murdered with a non-alcoholic bottle of sparkling cider. The rest of the game was spent trying to determine 'whodunnit and why'. Basically it was a live game of Clue. After a game of charades they each gave their prediction of who the murderer was and the motive. Surprisingly, about 7 or 8 of them had nailed it. It was Serlock Tracy's former chef, Bameril Lacrosse who was guilty because Sherlock was about to reveal that she often gave people food poisoning and was going to pull the plug on her career and TV show.

In accordance with the convincing performances, prizes were given for Best Actress - Mag Niffie, Best Actor - Serlock Tracy, Best Mask - Secret Agent 002 and Best Costume - Bameril Lacrosse.

One of the guys from school had asked Anna Cath why she hadn't invited him to the party to which she replied, "you said, 'all parties without alcohol were crap,' so I didn't think you'd be interested."

"Yeah, well this one sounds like fun," he said. Those whose personalities like drama and dressing up naturally enjoyed the night most but all seemed to have a good time. It was a load of work but certainly worth it. My parents had a surprise mystery dinner when I turned 16 and I hope Anna Catherine will look back as I do with fond memories of a different kind of 16th. We are so glad you are our daughter - you give us such joy.