This has been a milestone year for Stapleton residents. If you have Facebook, you may have noticed that a large number of Stapleton residents have exited their thirties, and jumped into their fourth decade. In fact, almost two-thirds of Stapleton residents (64%) turned 40 this year. “I don’t think it is that big of a deal,” says Stapleton resident Gage Huxley. “I mean, 40 is the new 30 right?” Other residents agree. “To me, it is just another year,” says Mike Artz. “In fact, my birthday gets pretty lost in the shuffle of real crap to take care of like kids, house, job, etc.”
The biggest challenge many of these “over the hill” residents faced was figuring out how to celebrate the big four-oh. “We have lots of friends in Stapleton,” says Karen Taylor. “And, of course, many of them turned forty this year. It got pretty taxing having to get a sitter every weekend for a party, or going to a destination party. So, we thought we needed to just make it easy on everyone.” Taylor decided to use technology and simply plan a massive, “we’re all turning 40,” party.
Taylor first sent an invite to all of her friends on Facebook who she knew would be turning forty. Then, she posted a message on Big Tent. Soon, Taylor had over 500 people who were either turning forty or who felt responsible for throwing a forty year old party for a spouse. “A lot of people liked the idea of just having one big get together and being done with it,” said Taylor. “So, we decided to just have a big BYOB party on the green. It was really great. People were provided with signs for where they set up shop with whose birthday they were specifically celebrating. It was just an easy way to celebrate for everyone and to have all these people in one place at one time instead of having to go to 10 birthday parties.”
Residents seemed to really appreciate Taylor’s efforts. “We loved it,” said Jennifer Weber. “It was great to basically have someone else plan the party for my husband. And then most of our friends were already going for some reason, so it just made it easy.” People enjoyed cocktails, some live music, and a lot of people simply ordered pizza. “It was a blast,” said party-goer Sam Dettman. “Now, we know we are done with these forty year old parties this year and can just move on. Hopefully, they do the same thing next year, or maybe in 10 years when we all turn 50.”
]]>