Happy Birthday Video Message Ideas
Birthdays only happen once a year, which is why we should make an effort when it’s time to celebrate a loved one’s special day. Video greetings for birthday surprises, milestone birthdays, and long-distance birthdays make unique and memorable gifts for the honoree. The hard part is figuring out what to say in your video gift!
Here are ten ideas for birthday video messages to help get you started.
Video Message for Birthday Greetings
Check out these creative ideas on how to say “Happy Birthday” in a birthday video message.
- Poem. Get your creative juices flowing with a limerick, haiku, or sonnet for the birthday boy or girl. Can’t come up with something original? Not to worry! There’s no shame in a quick Google search for birthday poems. Whether the poems are sweet and thoughtful or witty and lighthearted, the recipient will appreciate the thought and effort put into their birthday video.
- Song. Encourage family and friends to make up their own short tune to express their well wishes or have them each sing a line or two from Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday, the Beatles’ Birthday, or a non-birthday song that the honoree loves. The recipient will love the musical tribute regardless if loved ones are in-tune or off-key!
- Costumes. A birthday gift video that includes family and friends dressed as characters from the honoree’s favorite book or movie makes for a truly one-of-a-kind experience. Who wouldn’t want to get birthday wishes from Dorothy and the Tinman or Harry Potter and Hermoine? Alternatively, keep things super simple and have contributors dress up in ANY costume stored away in their attic or basement. The hodgepodge of random ensembles will also make for quite a unique birthday video!
- Quotes. Sometimes it can be difficult to find the right words for a special birthday greeting. Luckily, there are plenty of famous people out there who have offered us eloquent (or hilarious!) quotes about birthdays, aging gracefully, and living life to the fullest. Family and friends can use these heartfelt and funny quotes at the start of their video clip for inspiration. Here are a few quotes to help get you started.
- Youth is the gift of nature, but age is the work of art. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
- Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest. — Larry Lorenzoni
- Eventually you reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it. — Will Rogers
- Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be. — Lauren Hutton
- Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears. — John Lennon
- Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years. — Ausonius
- We must both, I'm afraid, recognise that, as we grow older, we become like old cars - more and more repairs and replacements are necessary. — C. S. Lewis
- Live not one’s life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last. — Marcus Aurelius
- The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. — Lucille Ball
- As you get older, three things happen: The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two. — Norman Wisdom
- Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young. — Fred Astaire
- Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. — Mark Twain
- There are two great days in a person’s life—the day we are born and the day we discover why. — William Barclay
- Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself. – Tom Wilson
- Quiz. Who knows the birthday boy or girl the best? Give each video gift contributor a few questions about the honoree to read aloud and answer. Questions can be grouped around the honoree’s favorites (ice cream flavor, TV show, author, school subject, etc.) and their firsts (pet, car, school crush, concert, etc.). Some answers will be spot-on, and others will be way off! Either way, the honoree will get a kick out of the birthday video quiz!
- Pets & Kids. Who can resist the lure of puppies and little ones? Don’t be afraid to include your kids and furry friends in your group video message. Pets can perform a trick for the birthday honoree and kids can show off their newest skills too (cartwheels and silly songs count!).
- Photos. Have each contributor find a photo of the honoree to hold up during their video gift message. Encourage them to talk about why the pic is a favorite and share any fond or funny memories associated with the photo. The recipient will love to see old photos of themselves with friends and family from over the years and hear stories that they might have forgotten.
- Dance. Whether it’s the latest TikTok dance, the Moonwalk, or the Funky Chicken, get friends and family moving and grooving! Have contributors play their favorite song (or better yet, the honoree’s favorite jam) and dance away in a surprise video message. Lip syncing is strongly encouraged!
- Jokes. Start your online video message off with a real gutbuster! Encourage friends and family to share their favorite joke or puns with the honoree. Be sure to set some ground rules about clean, age-appropriate humor if necessary. Here are a few jokes for a birthday video:
- Forget about the past, you can’t change it. Forget about the future, you can’t predict it. Forget about the present, I didn’t get you one.
- What does one ice cream say to the other on their birthday? Congrats! It’s sherbert day!
- How do pickles celebrate their birthdays? They relish them.
- You know you’re getting old when you have more candles on your cake than friends at your birthday party.
- You don’t get smarter when you become older. There just aren’t so many stupid things left that you haven’t done yet.
- What did the Teddy Bear say after blowing out his birthday candles? No cake for me…I’m stuffed!
- Congrats on proving that getting older doesn’t mean getting wiser.
10. Gratitude. What does each family member and friend appreciate about the honoree the most? Is it their sense of humor? Their generosity? Their integrity? A group video message where everyone shares their favorite trait of the honoree and their gratitude makes for an especially meaningful birthday greeting!
We hope this birthday video guide has been helpful! Remember that a video for birthday greetings should be heartfelt, personal, and meaningful. Keep this in mind when creating your birthday video gift and you can’t go wrong!
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