Surprise gifts to give on a birthday: touching birthday ideas

Portrait Drawing Gift

How about giving a caricature as a celebratory gift? Caricature Wonderland commercial

As for caricatures, if you can draw one yourself, it would be even better to sketch it on a shikishi board or a notebook cover and include a group message.

You can also turn it into a combo with a handmade photo album.

If you’re not confident in your drawing skills, leaving it to a professional can make it exciting for the person planning the surprise as well, adding to the fun even more.

A song gift in a video

A Small Love Song: Daisuke Kobayashi's Birthday Surprise Movie

It’s a surprise gift where you ask many acquaintances to each sing a line of a song, then edit the clips together into a single video to complete the song.

Because it’s assembled from individual segments, it’s easier to coordinate participants’ schedules for filming, and it generally doesn’t require much budget, making it a relatively easy and accessible surprise gift.

message board (with group messages), group card, or collective autograph

Surprises that you’ll want to look back on later are wonderful, aren’t they? With that in mind, I’d like to introduce the idea of giving a group message.

It’s a very simple concept, but it warms the heart, and you can revisit it later or even display it.

You can write on a standard message board (shikishi), or on a handmade message card, or even on the gift itself.

Try arranging it freely with your own ideas.

Another recommendation is to paste photos into an album and add group messages there.

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Flash mob at an izakaya

Birthday Flash Mob Completed Version AKB48 Namida Surprise

Flash mobs—where people you thought were just ordinary bystanders suddenly spring into a surprise performance—have become pretty well-known these days.

How about doing one at an izakaya? If you get your friends and your partner’s friends involved and celebrate in a big way, they’re sure to be thrilled.

Just don’t forget to give the staff a heads-up!

Homemade bento as a present

How about a heartwarming surprise with a homemade bento? The contents can be anything, but it’s nice to tie them to a birthday or to the person themselves.

For example, you could recreate a birthday cake in the style of a character bento, or pack it full of their favorite foods.

This is a surprise you can pull off either by yourself or with a group of friends.

Beforehand, don’t forget to tell them, “Don’t bring a lunch tomorrow!” Alternatively, you could focus mainly on desserts.

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home-cooked meal

I worked hard to make a full-course dinner for my wife's birthday!

As you might expect, eating out is great for a birthday, but some people probably prefer to relax at home and enjoy a home-cooked meal made by their partner or family.

I don’t think there’s anything better than a table full of your favorite foods.

If their favorite happens to be something that’s hard to serve as homemade—like ramen or dishes that need to be simmered forever—you could always make a cake or sweets from scratch instead.

Making two cakes so you can do a face-smash cake moment is a fun option too!

Flash mob at the movie theater

Flash mob surprise proposal at a movie theater

Many of you are probably familiar with the flash mobs that have been making waves lately.

A flash mob is a setup in which a large number of people posing as ordinary passersby coordinate to deliver a surprise performance.

This example took place in a movie theater.

Combined with the on-screen visuals, the emotional impact when it succeeds can be quite significant.

Because the theater must effectively be reserved, the venue fee tends to be relatively high; however, unlike doing it on the street, you don’t have to worry about inconveniencing other passersby, which is a notable advantage.