Birthdays

Traditions, philosophies, and Inspiration

It’s my birthday today, which is what inspired this post. How we celebrate birthdays obviously changes as we get older, as life happens, and as we become responsible for our own acknowledgement, but the fundamental idea remains the same: “Hey, cutie, we’re glad you were born and think the fact that you’re here is worth celebrating. Thanks for being alive.”

My mom was born in Germany in 1942 and was so poor as a post-war child that she was sent to a sanitorium for six months at age 7 to recover from malnutrition-induced stomach tuberculosis. The excess of the American birthday party model of my childhood so appalled her that after watching another child’s gift-frenzy birthday, she instituted the white elephant gift party for her daughters that became the standard that has continued to this day for any birthday gathering. My sister and I stopped having parties when we realized other kids thought we were weird (I mean, that probably would have happened even without the white elephant gift policy, but *shrugs* whatever), so then birthdays became about experiences – going somewhere, or doing something special with close friends or family – instead of about parties and presents.

When my kids were little, I instituted the Family Bed Birthday – the birthday child woke up and crawled immediately into our bed, where the song was sung, a fuss was made, and a gift was given – so even on a school day they already felt acknowledged and special. That tradition continues even now, and our giant kids still wander into our room on a birthday morning for the song, the fuss, and the gift. I actually had to train Ed in the morning birthday fuss for myself because his family had more of a dinner-gift tradition, and now he’s so well-versed that even when I’m not feeling very birthday-ish, the first-thing-in-the-morning fuss tells me he thinks I’m worth celebrating.

We are both storytellers, and I have illusions of craftiness that found an outlet in our kids’ birthdays. Our dearest friends on our street have three kids near-ish in age to ours, so it became our tradition to put together elaborate adventures for all five kids. The Harry Potter-themed birthday involved gold-painted sticks for wands, a spellbook, capes for all five kids, a “transfiguration” class (basically animal-themed charades), and a potions class involving both a “mix your own fruit drink” potion and a Mentos and Diet Coke explosion in the back yard. The Indiana Jones birthday was a backyard obstacle course and a nerf battle, and the last one we did for the eldest’s 12^th birthday was a geocache treasure hunt we stealthily set up in our local Botanic Garden, ending with the finding of little metal oil lamps (we’d been reading a series of Aladdin-type books) hidden among the roots of giant ficus trees.

Those adventures became the birthday parties themselves, and the now-grown kids still talk about how much fun they were. But just like reading my favorite books out loud to my kids was as much about my enjoyment as it was theirs (I was much more likely to volunteer reading time when I was hooked on their book), planning the birthday adventures was fun for us, and consequently, I think the kids felt celebrated.

Now, grown-kid birthdays involve favorite meals, dinner with Grammy and maybe the neighbors, and ideally, a travel adventure sometime within that month. Hopefully our kids haven’t stopped wanting parties because we’re such storytelling weirdos, but *shrug* whatever.

*Side note - our kids actually love my mom’s white elephant gift parties, even now, so there’s that too.