Party Hard! How To Throw A Party Totally Hobbit Style

Every LOTR fan knows that hobbits love parties. The first book in the series, The Fellowship of the Ring, starts with Bilbo’s eleventy first and Frodo’s thirty-third birthday party, which Bilbo also uses as his going away party. Tolkien himself wrote about the importance and particulars of hobbit party-giving customs in a letter.

Learn how to throw a birthday party like a hobbit below!

 

Atmosphere

Hobbits are jolly bucolic folks. The decorations shouldn’t be too fancy, though of course there should be twinkle lights or lanterns, and if you know a friendly wizard, fireworks wouldn’t hurt. For a color scheme, try green and yellow. The hobbits of the Shire are particularly fond of these colors. You may also want to have games ready!
For playlist ideas, you can always try any of the considerable works inspired by Tolkien’s fantasy world. My favorite might be the The Hobbit Suite by John Sangster. An upbeat, jazzy playlist can never go wrong. Fancy a Misty Mountain Hop by Led Zeppelin? Maybe the entire concept album by Blind Guardian, Nightfall in Middle Earth, would be fitting if you and your kin are into fantasy metal. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, there is a lot of fantasy and folk metal based on LOTR and/or The Silmarillion.

Led Zeppelin – They even have hobbit inspired curly hairstyles! UNITED KINGDOM – DECEMBER 01: Photo of LED ZEPPELIN; L-R: John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham – posed, group shot, sitting on car bonnet. (Photo by Dick Barnatt/Redferns). Source: Wikimedia.

Food

Food is crucial! Hobbits eat about seven meals a day, and for good reason. Everyone is more cheerful when they’re well fed. No one wants a hangry hobbit, or human.

Breads, cheeses, and some meat pies are all classics. Of course, it would hardly be a party without mushrooms (I’m suggesting the culinary variety). Hobbits prize mushrooms and go to great lengths to gather them and eat them. Biscuits or scones, little pastries, and cakes would be welcome additions to any hobbit table. Find some honey drizzled breads or some seed cakes to be particularly fitting.

Here’s a full list:

Gift-Giving

To properly throw a birthday party like a hobbit, the host must give gifts to the guests. Why? Because a birthday party is about showing love and appreciation to the kinfolk of the byrding. Ribadyan is the Westron word for a person celebrating his or her birthday. Its equivalent, in Anglo-Saxon, would be byrding, where byrd means “birth.”
Hobbits are a tight-knit group, valuing family ties and family histories as an integral part of their society. They know each other well, and know how to take care of each other. Giving gifts to guests on a birthday honors this foundation of their little society by celebrating these family and friendship bonds. So give a little something to your guests! They use the term Mathom for old and assorted objects, which are invariably given as presents many times over or were stored in a museum (Mathom-house).

Don’t worry, it is still customary for those closest to the byrding to give gifts in private before the celebration starts. After all, they’re celebrating their kinship with the special birthday person as well!

How will you be planning your Hobbit party?

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Featured image via Playbuzz

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