Grandma's birthday party

The introduction

Hey everyone, today I want to share some of my experience in Georgia, and particularly, I want to tell you about this great event for us, which was my grandmother’s birthday. It’s an important event every year, I can say, because she has so many relatives and she knows so many people and she is a respectable woman among many people and she has sisters and children and grandchildren and so on and so forth…

So, my grandmother had just had a birthday and it was a big event, so many people gathered there and, of course, there we were _ her grandchildren, too. That was a day I was really looking forward to, because I had something prepared for her.

The decision

Well, you know, I paint and she has wanted to have a painting of mine for a long time and I just wanted to think of something that would make her happy and which she would like and stuff like that, you know. I thought about it for a long time. Then I made a decision, that I would paint some poppies for her and it would be on two canvases _ one would be bigger and the other one smaller and, you know, the whole picture would be on those two and if someone wanted, they could separate those two, or just hang them together.

So, the idea was decided, then I had to look for some poppies and decide the exact face of the painting, because I couldn’t just paint something randomly , I had to know exactly what I was going to paint on those two canvases. The canvases themselves were not that big of a deal, because there’s this shop and I use to buy there many things including canvases, well, there are things for painting and frames also and stuff like that and people go there and buy whatever they need for painting and artists go there and take their paintings or just pictures or whatever and make frames for them and, you know, all the other things you can do at the art supplies shop. There are even some paintings that you can see, I mean, there are paintings which are framed or something like that and waiting for their owners to be taken, I guess, because I don’t think they are just for selling or something like that.

Anyways, I had some poppies searched on Internet and there were some of them which I liked and decided to paint those types of poppies. You know, there have been many types of poppies in the world, as I’ve read during this process of searching. But I had only seen that type of poppies which grow here nearby my house or in Georgia, in general, and, I must say, that they are pretty beautiful. And the poppy field is just amazing, once you’ve seen it, you can never unsee it! I remember, once we were on our way to a Georgian dance concert to western Georgia _ we were to dance there, and on our way there, our bus broke down and there was this whole poppy field nearby the road. And while they were fixing the bus, we just went outside and ran towards that poppy field. And though it had been raining and everything was wet, we just went there through the poppies and took pictures and enjoyed the beauty of those things. And, I must say, that I was wearing shoes that were made of clothes, I mean, they were not leather or something like that, they were made of that kind of thing, which can be easily gotten wet, so they got wet and all I could feel was like I was walking in a sea or something like that and it made that noise like when you suddenly walk into a swamp or a puddle. It was hilarious, though, and all I could do then was to take them off and try to dry them in the bus while we were on our way, until we got to the town where we had to walk our way to the town center and then into the concert hall and into the dressing rooms.

Anyways, it was a week or so remaining until my grandmother’s birthday, so I had to work fast, because the drying of those paintings takes all the time. And I couldn’t just paint those poppies in a single layer, because I wanted them to be kind of heavy and with much paint on them and with the feeling, that they were real and out of the two dimension, you know. And that needed much drying and then painting and drying. So, I had to have time for drying, otherwise it would make no sense and everything would mix together. So, just remember, that when painting with oil colours, you need much time for drying. It’s not like gouache or watercolours or acrylics, you know, when the paint dries in a short period of time.

Well, I painted the background at first, of course. I decided it to be light and not very heavy and kind of mostly white and soft. Then the second layer was the shadows of those poppies, like silhouettes, you know, and then there was the main colours and main strokes and stuff. I guess, I had something like six or seven layers done. So imagine, all those needed a day or at least 12 hours of drying. And I was really glad, that it was all driedfor the day when my grandmother had her birthday.

On our way to grandma’s

My grandmother’s birthday was on 29-th of May. It was a pretty Sunday and Sundays are good, you know. We were to be there in the afternoon or so, because that was the time when the people would start gathering and it would all start with talking and meeting and stuff like that, you know, and then there would be the celebrations and all the other things.

It was midday or late midday when our uncle called and we got ready to go. First of all, we would go to the grocery store and buy some things and then we would go to my grandmother. And it was two days or so that my sister had come back to Georgia, so it would be the first time she would meet my grandmother for the first time after all those months of studying in Germany. The hilarious thing was, that when we got to the grocery store, my brother said he was hungry and could wait till we got there to my grandmother’s (as you know, there would be much food for the celebration) and went to Wendy’s and McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts and just ate those huge hamburgers and drank Dunkin’ Donuts’ coffee and he said that now he felt just great.

When we got all the things we wanted, we got back to our car and continued our road to Kakheti.It was a nice  day, not very hot, not very cold. Just a warm nice weather outside. We just needed something like half an hour to get there. Our little cousin started singing some songs and then my sister and brother sang along, too, and, well, it was fun. Then he said he was tired of the road and couldn’t wait until we got there.

Getting to grandma’s

Finally we got to my grandmother’s house. There were some people already, as we saw some cars parked in the yard. Well, they were my grandmother’s sisters and cousins. They always come to my grandmother’s birthday they love each other so much. They greeted us and my aunt and cousin greeted us, too. And  they were all happy to see my sister and started to ask all the things about her studies abroad and stuff like that. And, of course, I gave my painting to my grandmother. Well, at first, she took the larger canvas and saw the painting and then I told her that it had a “continuation” on the second canvas and, you know, we put them together near the wall and looked them from the distance, as  you see the whole picture better from the distance.

Remember, I told you in another blogs about my aunt and how amazing she is baking cakes and all the other stuff? Well, I was talking about that aunt (as I have many aunts, you know). So, it was time to see my grandmother’s cake and she took me to another room, where she kept the cake. I must say, the cake looked just amazing and delicious and, well, she has a great imagination and she does that stuff just amazingly great! And, what is more, the cake had a chocolate cream and I love things with any chocolate cream! And, of course, as it was a strawberry season, the cake had lots of strawberries, which make it even more delicious and one can’t wait to taste something like that, I’m sure you will all agree with that.

There were also some things to be done, and while people were gathering little by little, we got to the kitchen and started helping my aunt in those small things that we could help, such as chopping or spreading some walnuts to the eggplants or mixing some ingredients together and stuff like that. And while we did that, we talked about stuff and it was pretty enjoyable.

Then my another aunt and uncle came with those huge red roses for my grandmother. They were really beautiful and huge! I haven’t seen my aunt for a year or so, I guess, and she looked the same and beautiful. My cousins and my sister were playing outside, while my brother went home for some time, until the celebrations started. And felt like everyone was enjoying this meeting and stuff. I liked that.

Buying bread

You know, Georgians eat lots of bread and by that I mean lots and lots of bread. They can’t live without bread, I guess. And especially they eat much bread in eastern Georgia and Kakheti is an eastern Georgia, if you want to know. The other day, I was just walking in the street in Tbilisi and this man was walking opposite to me and he was talking to his phone, probably to his wife, and he was asking whether they had bread at home or not and I guess, she told him that they had not enough of bread and then this man asked if he needed to buy some bread for home and then she said “yes” (I assumed) and then he asked “how many”. So, you understand how it is?! People usually buy two or four loaves of bread or something like that for their daily intake. I must say, that bread here is really delicious, though. There are all different kinds of bread, but the one nearby my apartment is very delicious, because there’s always new baked bread there and when I buy it, it’s still warm or even hot. And no one can resist not eating Shoti _ that’s Kakhetian bread baked in Tone and is very delicious!

So, my aunt said that she had pre-ordered Shoti the day before and that it would be ready at 5 p.m. And everyone was just waiting for bread, you know. They were like “when are you going to bring some bread?” and so we went for bread when it was close to 5 o’clock. Well, guess what?! The bread was not ready, in fact, it was not even going to be ready, because they had forgotten to tell the baker that somebody had ordered 10 loaves of bread. So, what we could do was to go to other bakeries and ask if they had bread. It was really strange, that wherever we went, they didn’t have bread, I mean, they didn’t have Shoti, but of course they had other bread, but we didn’t want those. It was in one other bakery that we went and they had some and after some waiting we got our bread!

Then we went to pick up my brother and I saw my another grandmother, too, who gave me some Churchkhelas _ those are walnuts with grape juice, in short, and they are really delicious and no one can resist not eating them. Especially when they are fresh and newly prepared.

So, then we went to the grocery store to buy some juice and pickled peppers for a dish and we came back home with bread that everyone was waiting for, and then they started laying the table. That process is pretty amusing. Someone places all the food on the plates just so they are beautifully decided and equally and stuff like that and other people take those plates to the table and arrange them into some sorting. So, many people are moving around during that process.

Finally, everything was ready and people just gathered around the table and it all started.

The celebration

You know how it goes, or you don’t. well, I have explained many things about Georgian feast in my other blog. However, this was not an usual Georgian feast, of course, it was a birthday celebration and everyone was just focusing on my grandmother, of course, and the toasts were circling around her and stuff like that. And this thing was that everyone was telling some stories and my grandmothers were telling their stories of their lives and the stories were pretty amusing, I must say, and the idea of telling the stories was to remember some funny stuff, of course, and so they remembered some and told and it was really exciting moment and they felt kind of nostalgic of those times, I guess. Well, I would, probably, if I were them.  

Well, I can’t just write about my grandmother’s birthday celebration and not mention my aunt’s cooking skills again and again. She just rocks. She had prepared so many things and everything was so delicious, that everyone was amazed. Of course these people knew how great cook she is, but still, when you eat dishes prepared by her, they leave you fascinated. So, what I’m saying is, that everything was perfect and tasty and I wanted to eat them all, but, you know, you can’t eat everything, and I just tried to eat small amounts of everything, I mean, to taste them all, and with that tasting I would have tasted everything little by little with small bites.

So, the last thing they waited for was another nephew and his family to arrive and finally they showed up with big roses bouquet for my grandmother. And now they could go onto the dessert, which was just more than enough. I mean, there were three kinds of cakes and the fourth and the main one was this birthday cake for my grandmother, which was decorated amazingly and looked just great. And, of course, there was lots of fruits and stuff like that, you could get really confused.

The birthday cake was made from chocolate cream and had strawberries in it. The decoration was this big basket full of strawberries on the grass and it looked like it was real and stuff like that, you know, and I couldn’t help but stare and wonder how it was made like that. And the other cakes were white, brown and all the other colours, if you must. They were really delicious, especially one white one. It was that kind of one that I like, I mean, the idea of that kind of cake. And that particular cake I tasted first there, and it was just what I liked.

Well, then came the time for our grandmother to blow out the candles. We went to the kitchen and put the candles into the cake and lit them and then someone had the  lights turned off and everything was ready for the candles to be blown. But, I guess, you won’t imagine, how many times those candles got lit and blown out! At first, our grandmother blew them out. Then my cousin wanted to help grandmother blow the candles. They lit them again. And then another cousin wanted to do that with grandmother and so on and so forth and everyone just lit and blew the candles. Then everyone just gathered around my grandmother and it was a picture time! Little by little everyone gathered and the whole picture came out great, I guess, because many people are in the picture and it’s like a great memory for us, you know, when you look at that picture some time later and realize how good time you had on that day. It’s just a great feeling, and that’s what I love about grands’ birthdays and birthdays, in general.

One of the very important parts of the cake was to actually cut it and, usually, everyone gets a slice of cake regardless they want to eat it or not. But mostly, people just say whether they will eat it or not, so that this slice won’t be just for laying there or something like that, you know. I helped my aunt slice the cake and take those slices to each of the guests individually. And who could say no to those slices?! I’m sure, I couldn’t, and I didn’t. and when my aunt asked if I wanted that big slice of the cake, I immediately agreed, because even if I wasn’t that hungry or something (there’s always a place for the dessert!), I couldn’t not eat the cake. And I don’t really like it when they take something and then leave it in the middle of eating, I mean, some take the slice of cake and they eat them halfway and then they just leave it like that. I can’t stand that. You should eat it to the end, no matter how full you fill yourself. Or you can wait a while and then eat it little by little. It’s just bad when someone leaves a piece like that. One put so much effort in making that thing and someone just ignores it and leaves it like that! So, however big my slice of cake was, I ate it to the end, because it was so delicious and the other reason, too, that I’ve mentioned it above.

In the end, everyone had fun and, I guess, everyone was very pleased to have come to my grandmother’s birthday. Then there was these photoshoots and stuff like that, and I usually take many photos on such days, but unfortunately I had my mobile phone left at home and I just took some pictures from others phones and photo cameras, but then it seemed, that they didn’t have enough space and I couldn’t take pictures anymore and it was frustrating, but that was okay, because other people took some pictures, too.

Then we left for Tbilisi as it was Monday the other day and we had lectures and my aunt had work and stuff like that. 

Photo gallery