A milestone birthday is the one occasion where the number is the whole point. Nobody frames the card for a thirty-third; they frame it for the thirtieth, and whatever you write has to acknowledge the figure on the front without labouring it. The trick isn’t to be funnier than usual — it’s to be specific. A joke that would work equally well for any birthday at all is exactly the joke that gets skimmed, because by the time your card is opened the room has already produced four versions of it. What follows is sorted by the number: eighteen and twenty-one, thirty, forty, fifty, then sixty and seventy, followed by short one-liners for a text or a card and a handful of things worth saying out loud. Each message names the age it was written for, so find the right decade and send it as it stands.
Funny 18th and 21st birthday wishes
Eighteen. You can now vote, sign a contract and be held entirely responsible for your own decisions, which is a great deal to hand somebody who still can’t find their own keys. Congratulations, and have a brilliant night.
Happy 18th. Everything’s legal from this morning, and the main discovery of the next few months will be how quickly that stops feeling like a privilege. Enjoy the evening, and go easy on the people who have to see you tomorrow.
Eighteen years of being told what to do, and from today you get to make your own mistakes instead. Much better mistakes, I hope. Have a great day, and don’t tell your mum about most of it.
Congratulations on turning 21. Officially this one stopped meaning anything the day eighteen took over, and yet everybody still makes a fuss of it, so you may as well enjoy the loophole. Have a cracking day.
Happy 21st. In your grandparents’ day this was the one with the key printed on the card and a speech from your father. You’re getting neither, which I think we can agree is a result. Have a brilliant one.
Twenty-one and still being asked for identification, which is genuinely one of the better problems available. Wishing you a superb birthday and a year that’s more fun than it is sensible.
Eighteen today, and by all accounts you intend to spend it exactly as everybody warned you not to. Quite right too. Have a wonderful time, and whoever’s getting you home should be told in advance.
To somebody who is 21 today: you’re now old enough to be trusted with almost everything and young enough for none of it to be your fault yet. Make the most of the overlap. Many happy returns.
Funny 30th birthday wishes
Thirty. The age at which you start reading the labels on things, going to bed at a reasonable hour by choice, and describing music as loud. It suits you enormously. Have a brilliant day.
Happy 30th. Twenty-nine was a rehearsal; this is the one where people start asking about your plans. Ignore every one of them and have exactly the birthday you want.
You’re thirty today, which by the standards of everybody older than you is roughly infancy and by the standards of everybody younger is practically archaeology. Choose your company accordingly. Have a great one.
Thirty years old, and you’ve got a drawer of matching cutlery, a firm opinion about mattresses and a favourite supermarket. It has been fascinating to watch. Many happy returns.
Congratulations on 30. The good news is that nothing bad happens at thirty. The bad news is that they say the same about forty and they’re lying about that one. Have a lovely day.
Happy Birthday. Turning 30 is mostly a paperwork exercise — same person, new box to tick on the forms. Enjoy the evening, and let somebody else worry about how you feel about it.
Thirty today. You’ve finally reached the age you’ve been dressing for since you were twenty-two, so honestly this is a formality. Have a superb one.
To thirty: old enough to know better, young enough to carry on regardless. Wishing you a brilliant year and no sudden urge to take up jogging.
Funny 40th birthday wishes
Forty. The decade where your back has opinions, your knees make announcements and you still can’t quite believe the people running the country are younger than you are. Have a fantastic day.
Happy 40th. You’ve now been an adult for longer than you were a child, which explains a great deal about the state of your kitchen cupboards. Enjoy every minute of today.
Congratulations on reaching 40 with your sense of humour intact, which is more than can be said for most of us. Wishing you a brilliant evening and a year with fewer early starts.
Turning forty is the point at which you begin saying we, meaning you and your car, and taking a genuine interest in the traffic report. Welcome. It’s nicer in here than it looks from outside.
Forty today, and by my count you’ve spent roughly half of it waiting for other people. This evening everybody waits for you. Have a marvellous day and let them get on with it.
Happy Birthday. At 40 you’re entitled to leave a party without explaining why, refuse a drink without discussion, and be in bed by eleven with your head held high. Use the powers wisely.
You’re 40 and you still get asked for identification in certain lights, which I think we can agree is worth more than anything anybody’s wrapped up for you. Many happy returns and a superb year ahead.
Forty. Half your friends are pretending it’s nothing and the other half have booked a weekend away to get over it. Whichever camp you’re in, have a lovely one.
Funny 50th birthday wishes
Fifty. You now know exactly what you like, exactly who you can be bothered with, and precisely where the good seats are. That isn’t getting older, that’s winning. Have a wonderful day.
Happy 50th. Half a century, and the only real change is that you now bring your own cushion to things. Wishing you a marvellous day and a year that behaves itself.
Congratulations on 50 years of not doing what you were told. Long may it continue. Have a splendid evening and let the rest of us do the running about for once.
At fifty you’re allowed to be a difficult customer, to send something back without apologising, and to hold a firm view on the correct way to make tea. You’ve been in training for this for years. Many happy returns.
Fifty today. On the plus side, everyone’s finally stopped asking what you’re going to do with your life. On the minus, they’ve started asking about your pension. Ignore both and enjoy yourself.
Happy Birthday. Turning 50 appears to involve a great deal of talk about how it’s the new forty. It isn’t. It’s fifty, and by all accounts fifty is where the good bit starts. Have a brilliant one.
You’re 50 and you’ve still never once been the person holding everybody up. That is half a century of turning up on time, which frankly deserves a medal. Wishing you a superb day.
To fifty: the age at which you stop apologising for the things you’ve never liked. Wishing you a marvellous birthday and a year with very little in it that you didn’t choose.
Funny 60th and 70th birthday wishes
Sixty. You’ve reached the age where nobody can tell you anything, which is convenient, because nobody ever could. Have a wonderful day and let people spoil you.
Happy 60th. People have started offering you a seat before you’ve asked for one, which is either a compliment or a cheek depending on the day. Take it either way and have a marvellous evening.
Congratulations on 60 years of getting away with it. Wishing you a splendid birthday, good health, and no sudden enthusiasm for putting your feet up.
Sixty today, and still the first one up and the last to complain. Whatever the secret is, you’ve never once shared it. Many happy returns and a very good year ahead.
Seventy. Old enough to say precisely what you think and young enough to enjoy the fallout. Wishing you a brilliant day and plenty of people to practise on.
Happy 70th. You’ve outlasted three kitchens, two cars and every piece of advice anybody ever gave you. Have a wonderful day, and good health for the year ahead.
At 70 you’re entitled to leave any gathering at any time without giving a reason, and I notice you’ve been exercising that right since roughly your forties. Have a splendid birthday.
Seventy years old and still the fastest walker in the family, which the rest of us find frankly unreasonable. Many happy returns, good health, and no slowing down on our account.
Short milestone one-liners for a text or a card
Eighteen. Officially your own problem now. Have a brilliant one.
Happy 21st. Enjoy the loophole while it lasts.
Thirty and thriving, allegedly. Have a great day.
Happy 30th. Same you, better crockery.
Forty today and still no interest in behaving. Well done.
Congratulations on 40 years of ignoring good advice.
Fifty. Half a century of getting your own way. Marvellous.
Happy 50th. You’ve earned the comfortable chair.
Sixty and still the loudest laugh in the room. Enjoy it.
Happy 60th. Many happy returns and no talk of slowing down.
Seventy today, and not one bit of it wasted. Have a good one.
Happy 70th. Still setting the pace. Have a wonderful day.
Eighteen, and the good years start here. Many happy returns.
Twenty-one today. Legally an adult, mercifully not one yet.
A few words to say at a milestone party
Half a minute, then back to the food. Fifty years, and in all of them nobody has heard this person raise their voice at anybody who didn’t thoroughly deserve it. To your health, and to the next fifty being easier.
I’ve been asked to say something, so: forty. Forty years of turning up, doing the difficult bit and letting somebody else take the credit. Tonight the credit is yours and there’s no getting out of it. Cheers.
Very quickly, because nobody wants a speech at a 30th. Thirty years in, and you’re the only person in this room who has never let a friend down. That’s worth considerably more than the party. To you.
One thing before the glasses go round. Sixty is the age at which people start being told to take it easy, and I’d like to record formally that our guest of honour has no intention whatsoever of doing so. Good health.
Two sentences and then I’ll stop. Turning 70 in this family means everybody else finally admits who has been holding it together all along. To you, to your health, and to a very good year.
I promised the birthday girl I wouldn’t make a fuss about her 21st, so this isn’t a fuss. It’s simply a note that she’s the best of her generation and the rest of you will have to catch up. Cheers.
Questions and answers
Which birthdays actually count as milestones in Britain, and is a 21st still one of them?
Eighteen, twenty-one, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy and every decade afterwards are the ones people mark, and past seventy the family usually makes more of it rather than less. Twenty-one is the odd one out. It was the legal coming of age until the age of majority dropped to eighteen, which is why old cards carry a picture of a key: the key of the door, handed over at twenty-one. Legally it now means nothing at all, and it is still widely celebrated, often more heavily than the eighteenth. Treat it as a proper milestone, and treat the key of the door as material for a joke rather than a straight reference, because most people under fifty have no idea where it came from.
You are a good deal older than the birthday person. Does that change what you can joke about?
It changes the direction the joke is allowed to point. Teasing somebody about turning thirty when you passed fifty a while back reads as smug however lightly it is meant, because the real punchline is how much time they have left rather than anything about them. The version that works puts you in the frame instead: what you got wrong at that age, what nobody warned you about, what you would swap for their knees. Going the other way, with a younger writer and an older birthday, the safe ground is admiration with a dry edge rather than sympathy. Anything that reads as consolation for still being here lands badly at sixty and worse at seventy.
It is a surprise party. What do you write when you cannot ask them anything?
Write for the person rather than the event, because you have no idea yet how the event will go. A surprise fortieth can end with the guest of honour delighted or quietly furious, and a card that leans hard on the ambush is only funny in one of those outcomes. Keep the joke on the number and on them, and let a single line acknowledge that none of this was their idea. It is also worth writing the card before you set off: the last quarter of an hour before the door opens is spent whispering in somebody’s dark kitchen, and nobody in the history of surprise parties has written anything good in those conditions.
The party has slipped into the following year. Do you still write 40th on the card?
Yes. The birthday happened when it happened and the party is a separate thing. Write the number they turned rather than the number they are now, and if the gap is obvious, say so plainly in the first line, because a fiftieth held eight months late is funnier acknowledged than ignored. The exception is a card handed over on the actual day of the next birthday, when the number on it should be the current one. If both are being marked at the same event, pick the round one to carry the joke and mention the other in passing. Two numbers competing for the same punchline kills it outright.
Is a joke about retirement fair game in a 60th message when they are still working?
Only if they raise it first. Sixty and sixty-five no longer line up with leaving work for most people, and a card full of slippers, gardening and long lie-ins can read as a hint rather than a joke, particularly if the last year at work has been a difficult one. The safer target is the paperwork side of getting older: the letters that start arriving unprompted, the forms with a new box on them, the sudden interest official bodies take in you. That is genuinely absurd and assumes nothing. If they have a date in the diary and talk about it cheerfully, the whole seam opens up. A seventieth is different ground again, where the jokes belong to whatever they are actually doing now.