Birthdays, Mother's days, Christmas, Easter... you name it, always an occasion to celebrate and bring people closer together. As infants, the attention and closeness plays an important role on such events. Kids seem to be most impressed by the gifts and as teenager maybe a kiss from the lover is the biggest thing for celebration. What counts when we get older? Is it the food that we are mostly looking forward to? Is it the preparation and excitement of parties we put together or simply tradition that we celebrate as a day off work?

What happens if we put such a day "out of context"? All of the sudden Mother's day become an every day project where we appreciate our parents... or a birthday that is "nothing" special becomes a surprise social gathering?

June 9th, my dad's 69th birthday was such a "normal" Monday that started "usual" with having breakfast together, giving hugs and some gifts. The day went on and nothing special happened until in the evening my boyfriend and I invited my mother and dad to a restaurant to dine out. Strange things occurred before: for example the dog had supposedly  eaten the birthday cake or Rick had taken in the car to repair the brakes just before we wanted to go to the restaurant. My dad  was first surprised by the new restaurant that has opened but with a little trick everything seemed to be "normal"... Only my mom and I were busy in the kitchen and busy carrying food to the car and driving it off to a secret place.

My dad was dressed up and we were all ready to take off. Only Rick was still at the car dealer's place and of course Homer (the dog) was at home because he rolled outside in a field full of dung. My dad gives me the keys and we are heading towards that "new restaurant". The way, of course, goes along the "Murtenwald" (forest) but no worries we have a map:

"Strange, there is no such way..." my dad says. He educates me that after the "Huette" no traffic is allowed. Great, this is the way I am choosing! I comment with "there is smoke near the "Huette" and look at how busy this place is..." But my dad is still focused on the map and wants to move on. Not even my car, parked right in front of the "Huette" (made-up to be at the car dealer's place) can get his attention. Since there is no traffic allowed after the "Huette", I park on the side and can tell that my dad gets impatient... "common, lets go", he remarks now with more determination. I open the door and there comes Homer the dog joyful running towards us. A bunch of people are standing around the fire, beam with joy and greet the birthday boy... my dad almost has tears and is so surprised and of course we all greatly enjoyed the evening with friends and family.

THANK YOU ALL AGAIN FOR COMING AND THIS GREAT PARTY!!!

You can find more pictures of this event in my photoalbum.

Sometimes surprised are more exciting than anticipation and planning ahead. The moment of surprise, even though most of the time just lasting a few seconds, often have a much deeper impact and evoke a long lasting memory. We all know and learn from Childhood on that Christmas for example is always on the same date in December. Depending on our expectations and eagerness, we count the days and time relatively stretches into more hours; time seem to be endless. Once the day is there and we are in the middle of the joy, time shrinks into a few minutes and everything we really enjoyed seemed to be over much faster.

Surprises are at short notice but last long term. Planing ahead is a long term project but most of the time don't leave the same impression as spontaneousness. One reason we might not have the same intensity of emotions when planing ahead lies in the disappointment we  experience when not everything turns out to be as we had planned: We are disappointed when our expectations don't match reality. The other reason could be that we already experience everything in our mind when planing long term ahead. We think about the same action over and over again with few changes we create in our mind. This technique is very real and is actually part of mental training in sport performance and business strategies. Whatever we think is creation and can become real. Our body reacts to thought and feelings and conscious or not, we live through the situation in our mind. This is why a spontaneous act as a surprise, hopefully pleasant, can be "shocking" (new) for our system and along with all the excitement and endorphins create a long term memory effect.

I am looking forward to hear about your experiences that have left a special memory...