(STAFF PHOTO: TIM MCCARTHY)
Lauren Muraczewski (from left), Carolyn Kimmel and Jillian Leff of The Music Man ice cream parlor in Lavallette perform during an "unbirthday" celebration.

Published on Asbury Park Press on 09/8/07

BY HARTRIONO B. SASTROWARDOYO
STAFF WRITER

LAVALLETTE — The event held at The Music Man had all the trappings of a birthday party. There was ice cream, of course, in chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. There were games to win, prizes for the winners, hats to wear and songs in which everyone participated.

But it wasn't a birthday party.

Rather, it was an unbirthday party, a way for the Lavallette ice cream shop to allow children to have some fun and celebrate the 364 days on which their birthday does not fall. Some of the fun included a bingo game in which everyone won and received their choice of a sticker, a rock-paper-scissors contest and a mechanical pig race, in which the stuffed toys waddled — and stopped unpredictably — on their way to the finish line.

Almost two dozen children, along with their parents, grandparents and guardians, filled eight tables in the store.

"I liked the pig races and the bingo. But my favorite part was the ice cream," said Chloe Dixon, 8, of New York City.

Chloe attended with her grandmother Carole Leppert of Manchester.

"It's a fun thing to do, and it's great. She's having a ball," Leppert said.

The concept of celebrating an unbirthday was started by author Charles Dodgson. Dodgson, using the pen name Lewis Carroll, mentions it in his children's book "Through The Looking-Glass," the sequel to "Alice's Adventure In Wonderland."

In the book, Humpty Dumpty is given a cravat — a neckband similar to a tie — from the White King and Queen as an unbirthday gift, "a present given when it isn't your birthday, of course," he explains to a puzzled Alice.
Alice says she likes birthday presents best, but Humpty insists she doesn't know what she's talking about: a little math shows her that there are 364 days when one might get unbirthday presents and only one when it is a person's birthday.

The unbirthday party started this July as the newest show performed by the staff of The Music Man, whose past lineup includes puppet theaters and sing-alongs, storytimes and tea parties.

The party was emceed by Aggie Roberts, an employee since The Music Man's first year in 2003, who developed education programs at Princeton University's McCarter Theatre's Outreach Department.

And what would an unbirthday party be without Alice herself? Lauren Muraczewski, a recent Toms River High School East graduate who is going to Los Angeles and majoring in acting, played Sleeping Beauty in one of the store's past productions.