My dad was born in 1952, and in October he will turn 50, so what else to do but a 50's style dance? Me and my mother rented the community center in our town and transformed it back in time.  The theme was actually "rock 'n' roll".  We hung 50's cut outs, along with streamers and balloons from the ceiling, and over the "main" birthday table, we made a wire arch, and tied hot pink, black, white and silver balloons all over it.  Behind that table, we also had a black and white picture of my dad from his senior year blown up and tied from the ceiling.  He works for the Coke company, so we had old fashioned Coke and fountain machines for root beer floats, and we bought red plastic burger trays for our main course, burger and fries.  We encouraged everyone to dress up in either poodle skirts and jeans or pink ladies and T-birds. We had Hula-hoop contest and give away the movie "grease" and 50's songs on CD as a prize.  We had a large cake with a miniature "drive-in" built on it.  Towards the end when everyone thought the party was almost over, my brother dressed as Elvis (and a very good one, I might add) came blazing through and gave us one last show.  It was great and we all had a good time.