Creative Celebrations after Finishing your Tax Return
It's one of those activities we come to dread. Sitting for hours with figures and incomprehensible wording frying our brains as we try to fill out each year's tax form. It may not be fun, but considering the trouble not filling in a tax form can bring, the majority of us knuckle down and get it done. Dotting the last i and crossing the final t can feel like a major achievement, so why not celebrate with a few original ideas after you send that completed tax reform on its way?
Burn, baby, burn – Collect together as many newspaper and magazine articles about tax returns as you can find. Your friends will have some and probably want to join in when you explain your plan. Remember to search your junk mail for all the leaflets about tax which have fallen out of magazines or through the door. Now invite a few friends who also want to burn off the memory of that tax return.
Get everyone to bring potatoes, marshmallows, even bread for toasting. Select a few celebratory beverages and head out to a safe place to start abonfire. You'll probably need to collect up some wood, so make sure you've planned for this. Fuel your bonfire with all that loathsome tax information and enjoy watching it burn as you tuck into food cooked in the heat of a tax fire!
Up, Up and away – Got a hill or high roof near you? Get together any of the 'How to fill in a tax return leaflets you have lying around (They often come with the paper form). - if you filled in you return online, either print off a copy of the form or ask friends if they have leaflets to spare. Become a child once more (tax returns are so adult!), and make those leaflets intopaper planes. Send them into the wild blue yonder and feel the relief as they plunge into the street and get flattened, or fall into rivers, seas or deep, forgotten hollows.
A side note to this idea is spreading the love. Attach your leaflets to helium balloons. Add a little note from you to whoever finds the balloon when it comes down with ideas on how to celebrate finishing your tax return. Someone out there will smile instead of frown and thank you for paying it forward.
Sail Away – Beach parties are fun! Invite your friends. Make sure everyone has a 'Tax return in a bottle'. This can be an info leaflet or a copy of the real thing (make sure you black out any sensitive information!). Pop the paper into a bottle (use glass as it will recycle), along with a few ideas about celebrating the end of tax return day for whoever finds it and seal securely. Pack a picnic and head out to your nearest river or beach for the day. At a given point, get everyone down to the water for a grand launch of the 'Tax Return Fleet', and celebrate with something bubbly as is traditional.
Party hard! - Home is where the heart is, and your heart will no doubt be lighter for seeing the back of your tax return. Stay home and plan a tax themed shindig. Your celebratory cake could say '100% over!'. Your cocktails could be in jugs labelled with the percentage of alcohol content. Play games – Most creative hat made from a tax form, skittles using rolled up forms for skittles, and scrunched up forms for balls, eating contest (who can eat the biggest percentage of hotdogs!).
Alone again – If you prefer to say goodbye to your tax return in private, make it special. Pack a deliciouspicnicbasket. Add something delicious and bubbly. Tuck a copy of your finished tax return (with appropriate blacking out) into your pocket and head for the hills... or wherever you like to go to be alone, even if it is the bath! Have a glass or two, savour something tasty and then enjoy the supreme delight of tearing your tax form into itsy bitsy, teeny weeny little pieces which you can toss about like so much happy confetti (Just remember to take your 'confetti' home for recycling)
However you decide to celebrate completing your tax return, enjoy it to the max... until next year!
