The at-home birthday party is back

In my family, birthdays arrive in a cheerful pileup. From August through November, we move from my mom’s to mine to my siblings’, with only a brief intermission before my dad’s rolls around in April. The result is that I grew up something of an at-home birthday party enthusiast. Our immediate family alone was large enough to create a built-in sense of occasion; add a handful of friends you actually like enough to invite into your living room, and suddenly there’s cake on the counter, ice cream sweating gently in its carton...