Get a caterer! That is a LOT of people to cook for. You can do a few things yourself and ask the caterer to serve if you ask nicely. If a caterer isn't in the budget, at least order prepared food or platters to serve. Cooking for 80 at a hall is just too much. Hard to say what kind of food. I would pick what your mom loves best -- keeping in mind what your guests will enjoy, too. If she's a baseball fan, for example, have hot dogs and peanuts and beer. If she loves travel, have exotic choices. But I think really your best bet is to give the caterer a budget and let him/her suggest things. That always works for me. For decorations, flowers always say "special occasion," but they can be expensive. You can make copies of photos of her at different stages of life and put them in inexpensive lucite frames of different sizes (you may even be able to ask the store if you can return them if you keep them in perfect shape) and put a few on each table for centerpieces, perhaps with a single flower or candle. We did that for my mother's 70th and it worked nicely. Potted flowering plants with a ribbon around the pot are also nice and inexpensive centerpieces (and a lot less work). You can give them as thank you gifts to people who help you with the party. You are so nice to do this for your mother! Good for you. I am sure she will be thrilled.

Well, the party was a success so I thought I'd share the results after your thoughtful replies. Invitation: Cut out a large letter B from paper printed with balloons. I randomly wrote on the front B=Ball, B=Balloon, B=Book, B=Bubbles, B=Bugs. Then I wrote the party details for the Big Boy Birthday Bash on the other side, including that this was a "B" themed party. Food: (I was cooking for about 43 adults and kids.) Beefy Ribs and (Buns with Hotdogs for the kids) Brown Rice and Chickpea Rainbow Salad (GREAT pesto vngrte) Beans with Lemon and Walnut Vngrte Bacon and Blue Cheese Mashed Potato Casserole Biscuits with fresh herbs and Basil Butter Drinks: Basil lemonade Blueberry lemonade Cake: Banana cake in the shape of a bumblebee. I found a baseball cake pan the shape of half of a ball and thought "why not make that the body of the bee?" So I did. I used a 6" round cake for the head, but I cut it out a bit to fit snuggly into the round body cake piece. I frosted it with golden yellow buttercream. I was in a hurry so instead of mixing black icing for the bee's stripes, I sprinkled on brown jimmies in stripes. I used black licorice for the antenna and legs. I made wax paper wings with popsicle sticks as veins. I found those black licorce wheels as big eyes. It was so cute!! And tasty! Since I needed cake for 43 people, I made some extra banana cupcakes frosted with the bee frosting and some jimmies. Games: Balls (football, baseball, tennis balls, curvy ball and catchers, bouncy balls, soccer ball, beach ball, etc.) Bubbles (FIL makes his own bubble juice and has tons of fun wands) Butterfly pinata (couldn't find a bumblebee) filled with small bouncy balls, bee rings, etc. Treat bags: Black Bags filled with small "B" items like bubbles, ball erasers, blowers, etc. Decorated the house and deck with tons of balloons from the Dollar Store. Some of the gifts given to DS began with B, and some even decorated their gift bags and cards with B. It was cute to see people get into the theme. All in all, it was a great party. Kids had a fabulous time--too much of a good time at moments. ;) Thanks for your help!

Well, I always think this is important: if the guests include their friends, there are likely to be some with diet restrictions, so sugar free beverage options are necessary. For instance, if my 60+ year old mom was invited, she is diabetic. For other ideas, do you want to pick a theme? Based on one of their interests or just a generic birthday theme? When my uncle turned 60 we had only a small family party, but everyone brought him 60 of something.

Between the Valentine crafts for 5 y/o and HP for 8 y/o - we must have very similar lives! I had one for my son last summer, he was also 8. It was the first time we went all out for a party. He usually chooses to just go out with a friend or two. We even had it a few days later than his bday to do it on July 31, Harry's bday. The guests ranged in age from 5 (my own middle child) to 9. I printed invites myself, on parchment in emerald ink, telling guests that they were invited to a summer session of Hogwarts School. I used the same words that Harry reads in his letter (Dr. Mr. xyz, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted...), just changed them a little to suit the occassion. I might have saved it, email me, I could send you the file (in Publisher 98 or 2000) if I did save it. I wrote that it was in honor of Eric's 8th birthday, and concluded that all supplies would be provided, robes were optional. To make quick robes for my own kids, I bought XXXL mens black tshirts and cut a slit up the middle front. They were satisfied, that was before they saw the more glamorous version in the movie though. I have a black graduation robe of my own from HS that would work great, but when you have one thing and two kids that's asking from trouble, so I never even showed them. We only had about 10 kids, some had read the books, some had not. And since it was before the movie, those who hadn't knew very little, so we worked with that. I knew someone else who had a lot more kids and divided the kids into teams according to the houses and declared a house champion at the end of the party. Kids drew their house out of the "sorting hat." But they said it didn't go well because all the kids wanted to be in Gryffindor and some were a little miffed when they weren't. The games were classes -potions class we did some goop you make with kitchen stuff. I actually made (I could kick myself for the time spent, but they looked good) golden snitches. I dipped small styrofoam balls in gold glitter paint and attached white feathers. I made about 20 then hid them in the yard for the kids to find, "Quidditch Practice." One game was Bertie Botts beans in a jar, guess how many. I also sent my crafty aunts on a hunt for frog shaped chocolate molds, which they found. Another time consumer project, but they were the hit of the party. My kids no longer ask me to bake cookies, they are still asking for chocolate frogs or treats. The kids inhaled them, though. If I did it again, I would wrap a few in little bags for their goodie bag instead of just putting them out. We served orange soda and root beer, relabeled pumpkin juice and butter beer. I decorated the patio we had then (man, I miss that patio, we moved) with a roll of purple plastic table cover. It was about $14 for 100 feet (best decorating bargain I learned from college days working in a party supply store). I hung it in strips from the ceiling like curtians and tied it with gold rope. I was going for the great hall look, I put stars on the ceiling and tried to get my white Christmas lights up, but that plan didn't work for me. Always something goes wrong. Everything was purple and gold, the cups were clear plastic goblets. The favor bags were filled with a couple Harry Potter things (pencils, notepads, bookmarks) and cheap magic tricks I bought from a local magic shop. I told the man I wanted things for less than $2 that kids 6-9 could do, he was very helpful and demonstrated the tricks (after they were purchased LOL). So teaching the kids to do the tricks in their bag was part of the spells lesson. If money was no object, I would have hired a magician, I saw a couple ads in local parenting magazines for magicians who had tailored an act to the HP craze. I think everyone had a good time. The golden snitches and the chocolate frogs were the biggest hits, a little pride in myself since I spent FOREVER on them! All the kids wanted to know where I got them -it never occurs to them people make things. So I told them I could not reveal my Underground sources. Oh, and we made wands. That was the first thing we did as kids were arriving, so they had their wand for rest of the party. Can't go to wizard school without a wand. I bought I think about 1/4" dowel rods (I let my son pick what he thought looked best for wands) from home depot and cut them into 10-12" lengths. I had glitter, glue, wire garland with stars and paint markers set out to let the kids make their own wand as they arrived. I know my own kids had fun, they wore those robes and played with those wands for days. I guess thinking about it, everything was pretty much non-competitive, that's just how my ideas came out.