Birthday toasts and speeches

Is someone you love turning another year older?  Then it's time to party and offer birthday toasts and speeches to celebrate another successful year.

This page is especially designed for grown-up birthdays.  If you're looking for children's birthdays, may I suggest you check out the website Coolest Kids Birthday Parties.

General guidelines for birthday toasts and speeches

We all have birthdays but some are more special than others. Special birthdays call for parties and those parties call for speeches or toasts.

Whether you are doing a toast or speech at a special birthday celebration or you want to send a card with a personal note that honors the occasion, this section gives you tips that can be light-hearted and humorous as well as thoughtful.

As is the case with all speeches, you'll want to plan your remarks so that you engage your audience, make the person you are honoring happy, and avoid rambling or speaking too long.  At SpecialSpeeches, I recommend writing out your remarks. And most of all, practice them out loud. That way you'll notice any difficult phrases that can leave you choking on your words.

Adapting your speech for different age groups

What you might say depends on the age of the birthday person.

Special occasions -- such as an 80th or 90th birthday -- call for celebrations of wisdom and maturity. You'll want to express thoughts that are classic, in good taste and heartfelt.

For those in middle age, you have more latitude for jokes and puns about aging. In those years between carefree youth and dignified maturity, you can laugh about the years past and those ahead.  Have some fun with our collection of sayings that celebrate those glorious middle ages with a sense of humor.

After a person turns 40 or older, aging jokes are commonplace and can be really funny so long as none of your guests are elderly.  For people entering middle age, growing older with its challenges and limits can be funny. That's the time people are beginning to accept that they are seriously adults. And for many, the hint of aches and pains to come are just beginning to surface.  Just be aware of your audience and the person you are speaking about.  The last thing you want to do is hurt someone's feelings. . .  so be funny but kind. 

For birthday folks under 40, you have a wide field of topics.  Young adults have the least life experiences but offer the widest assortment of topics for your toast or speech. Subjects such as challenges with getting started in a job, relationships with others or the life learning curve are all  topics you can explore. .For the younger adults, think about some examples from those crazy teenage years or the craziness of becoming an adult and getting those first few jobs in your speech.

And for all ages, make your talk fun for you and for your audience.

General guidelines for birthday toasts and speeches: gifts

For specific wording for birthday toasts and speeches, there are a number of pages in this section that are tailored to certain age groups. Check those out. 

But if you're looking also for a gift, consider these traditions. For women, you can't go wrong with flowers or jewelry. For men, the favorite option is often a gift certificate. That may seem bland but is perfect if you don't know the man well enough to get an ideal gift. Is he a bookish type? A certificate to add to his collection lets him choose what he's missing or been eyeing.  A sports fan can always use a team hat or t-shirt.

Image by lisabussell from Pixabay

For seniors celebrating a birthday, think about something that will bring back special memories. Most seniors have all the stuff they need and are probably in the process of decluttering and giving items away. So a tchotchke   or some other item that takes up space may not be as welcome as a framed print of an old photo, perhaps letters that you have from earlier years or some personal item like a bag that includes a personal message or photo.  Doesn't take up much space and is useful.

Back to the women with special birthdays . . . Birthday months are associated with traditional flowers or gemstones. As you develop your toast, you might refer to the birthday chart below for inspiration.

Gems, flowers and signs for birthday months

How about a birthday song? A nostalgic look back . . . 

If you have a musical bent and want to sing to celebrate a special birthday, how about this classic song from Carly Simon which is especially appropriate for middle age or senior birthdays.

A light-hearted take on growing older