Of Birthdays and Holidays by Konnie Enos

 

Recently I saw a post where someone asked us to “imagine having a birthday within 2 weeks of Christmas.” Just think about having a birthday anywhere from December 11^th to January 8^th.

Well, that got me thinking.

I know a lot of people with birthdays in that period. I even know some people with birthdays in the first half of December who had complained about having their birthdays overshadowed by Christmas. The most common complaints were getting birthday gifts in Christmas-themed wrapping paper and or receiving just one gift to represent both events. This was particularly bad when it was relatives who gave their siblings two gifts a year, one for each event.

When I learned the due date for my fourth child (oldest son, Tony) all the information I had about December birthdays came back to me. But I had one as yet untapped resource, My cousin was born three days after Christmas, hence the same week my baby was due.

I had an enlightening conversation with my favorite aunt (said cousin’s mother).

She mentioned not only the two complaints mentioned above but also some family and friends who completely ignored that my cousin had a birthday. Yes, he experienced this, and yes, he noticed.

I took note. I even put my foot down. I told my family members they had to treat all my kids equally. Either they gave all of them both a birthday and Christmas gift or gave them one or none. But they could not give my other kids gifts and not my December baby. I wasn’t going to tolerate them overlooking one kid’s birthday just because it was close to Christmas.

I also told them I preferred that birthday gift not be in Christmas-themed wrapping paper. This meant that I could not use Christmas wrapping paper for birthday gifts. Now, as a rule, I could not afford a lot of wrapping paper so I wrapped most of my children’s birthday gifts in groceries bags.

However, one year I did find some birthday-themed wrapping paper and started using that. I ran out just before I needed to wrap my December child’s gift. I kid you not. Even the store where I’d found it before only had Christmas-themed paper in December.

I believe I resorted to using some plain red Christmas wrapping paper. He does like the color red. Now I plan to make sure I still have some birthday-themed wrapping paper when it’s time to wrap birthday presents for my December baby, and also for those people I give birthday gifts to who have birthdays in the above-mentioned period.

And yes, I have more than just that one cousin or my son, Tony, with a birthday so close to Christmas. Looking at my calendar I also have two nieces, another cousin, my son-in-law, my husband, and a sister-in-law and her late husband with birthdays between December 11^th and January 8^th. And those are just the ones I know about.

Then again, I also thought of all the people who have birthdays on, or extremely near, major holidays. Imagine people overlooking your birthday because it is within days of Thanksgiving, Easter, New Year’s, Labor Day, or national independence days (like July 4^th).

Try planning a birthday party on or near your birthday when it happens to be on or near a major holiday. All your friends ended up declining the invitation because their parents said, “that’s family time.”

Growing up, Bonnie and I had the best attendance at our birthday parties when we planned them for at least a week after the actual event. I think our biggest birthday party was when our big day was on a Monday, though just the one year, which happened to be 1976. With the fourth on Sunday, our town had a huge celebration on Monday. So it felt like the whole town was celebrating with us.

There are also our two youngest brothers. One was born on Labor day and the other on the last Friday of November. I’m not sure Labor Day had as much of an effect on my baby brother, but my other brother felt it. Far too often his friends weren’t available to celebrate with him because they were celebrating Thanksgiving with extended family.

So, as the Christmas season quickly approaches, I think not only about those numerous family members who deal with birthdays far too close to the event but also everyone whose birthday gets overshadowed by a major holiday.

As the holidays approach, think about the people you know who have birthdays on or near that major event. They want others to recognize their birthday the same way they do everybody else’s.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.