Most people want to have a surprise birthday party at least once in their lives. They want to have the thrill of walking into a dark room or a fancy restaurant and have people yell "Happy birthday" at them 🎂 🎉. This thrill is second only to a surprise wedding proposal 💍.

Planning a surprise birthday party isn’t an easy feat. It's rather tricky and people rarely mention the intricacies involved. Goodluck found this out the hard way when he and his friends tried to plan a surprise birthday for Jennifer.  

Even though he had a hard time planning a surprise birthday, here are a few tips we got about how to get it right and how things can go wrong.

Picking the team

This was the first thing Goodluck did and it is the most important part of planning a surprise party. Think of it as selecting your squad for the World Cup final. Every member of the team counts. Success depends on everyone playing their roles well. If something goes wrong, chances are, one of your teammates goofed.

Hush Hush Meetings

Now the biggest element of a surprise birthday party is… *checks note*, the surprise! This is the reason why the meetings are done in secrecy. If word gets out about the surprise birthday, there goes the surprise. It's a good thing most celebrants are great sports because even when they learn about the surprise party, they enthusiastically play along.

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

Of course, you want to make this surprise birthday special and spectacular. So, you need all the ideas you can get on how to pull this off. What location should you use? What approach will make the celebrant genuinely surprised? This explains why Goodluck had Efe and Tari in attendance at their secret meeting. He needed him to pitch him some amazing ideas.

Beware of the eager beaver

The eager beaver is always responsible for the collapse of the dam. Prince insisted on being on the planning committee, and things went awry because of him. Watch out for eager beavers! They mean well, but they could end up making a mess of the surprise party in their zeal.

So when next you plan a surprise birthday party, take a cue from Goodluck. Learn from his mistakes so you can do it right.

Watch how the surprise birthday party for Jennifer went south.

Watch The Johnsons every weeknight at 19:00 on DStv CH 151 AM Showcase for more holiday laughter.