B is for Birthday

For kids, birthdays are all about presents. Presents and cake. Presents, cake, and a party. A party where all your friends come and give you presents, and sing "Happy Birthday" to you.

Being born on December 23 does not facilitate having a big party, which means your opportunities to get presents are limited.

All through my childhood, I was envious of kids who had birthdays in the summer. They got to have outdoor parties, and maybe go swimming at a lake. Their relatives and friends gave them presents for Christmas AND their birthday. I sometimes got cards from relatives that said "Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas," and contained perhaps a $10 bill. Were my non-Christmas-born cousins getting $10 twice a year? I could never know, but I somehow felt this was unfair.

We always had some sort of little party - usually just me and my mother and Papa, and perhaps a friend or two. My mother made it festive by making my favorite food - one year it was lasagna, another year tofu patties - and a cake of some kind with candles. They would do their best to divide up the gifts evenly between my birthday and Christmas. But I could never remember afterward which gift I got for Christmas or my birthday - except when I wrote it my journal, as I did in 1982 and 1983.

1982 (Benton, New Hampshire)

On my birthday I turned 11. I had Shanni, Angela, and Erika over. We went sliding. Alicia came over. I had a birthday cake with whipped cream and flowers on top. I got a blouse that Cheryl made, a hairless Garfield, and Italian porcelain doll, a Jordache pocketbook, some markers, crayons, a zodiac stained glass window coloring book, the 2nd Big Book of Amazing Facts, some Osh Kosh overalls, and my favorite was a stuffed horse from Marian, Pat and Alicia. We played pin the nose on the clown. Shanni won. Erika spent the night. We played barbie dolls the next day until Darci's hand broke off. Then we got bored. We made a snowgirl because it rained.

Here's a photo of me and Alicia on Christmas day that year. I'm showing her my new stuffed horse horse and my doll Erica (Darci's sister). I'm wearing the blouse and the overalls I got on my birthday. The feather barrette was a Christmas gift.

On my birthday the following year we were living in a little trailer RV in a KOA Kampground in Tombstone, Arizona. Marian, Pat and Alicia ("the Boudreaults") had traveled west with us and were living in the nearby town of Bisbee.

1983 (Tombstone, Arizona)

On my birthday I turned 12. The Boudreaults came over. For supper we had tofu patties, peas, baked potatoes, salad, and bread. I had a cherry pie with rainbow candles and a tofu-orange dessert. It was delicious.

For presents, I got an Indian crafts book, an Indian beaded ponytail holder, a big stuffed Garfield and a loaf of sweet bread (from Cheryl and Papa). From the Boudreaults I got a baseball shirt with pink sleeves and a Pegasus with a rainbow and stars in the background, in pastel colors. From our landlord I got a knitted snowman - the hat fits Sasha. Some people in the campground gave me a copper road runner pin.

That pegasus shirt became my favorite shirt, and I wore it until the iron-on design crumbled off. Note that my mother knew my dissatisfaction with the hairless Garfield I got the year before, and got me a nice furry one that year.

Now having birthday parties is difficult because most people are with their families for the holidays. But I'm far past the age of being present-hungry, and if two people show up and I get to eat some cake, I'm happy.

Comments

[Erika Fernald]

I remember that stuffed horse and my next birthday...in August...when I probably had a party where we went swimming at the lake...I just had to have the exact same horse. I do remember even as a kid feeling bad that your birthday was so close to Christmas.