I have a daughter born December 26th (and conceived essentially by accident) so obviously I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about who gets a good ticket in the birthday lottery.
What are the pros and cons of your birthday?
My own birthday is May 26th. This is actually a pretty good birthday. While sometimes it overlaps with Memorial Day, most of the time it doesn’t. The weather is often good enough that you can have a picnic outside. It’s far enough away from Christmas/Hanakah so I feel like get presents twice a year. Mother’s Day is usually two weeks past and Father’s Day another two weeks away so I never felt like I was competing with my parents.
I’ve always felt pretty good about my birthday. And you?
September 16. Mexican Independence Day. Usually warm enough to go swimming outside (in Mississippi). It did, however, cut me off two weeks shy of the higher grade, which led me to be one of the oldest in my class.
I’m happy with it, personally. It is better, IMO, than my cousin’s, whose is on December 25.
My loathing for “pranks” is well-known by now, so no one tries them any more (took them nearly 20 years to realize that their “pranks” never worked).
But I’d have gladly accepted a Christmas birthday and the attendant “this is your Christmas and birthday present” issues rather than suffered stupid joke gifts and birthday pranks throughout childhood. And that was not just from friends – teachers, my parents and family, and parents of my friends, even. I swear it contributed to my generally low expectations for my fellow humans.
The only pro I can think of is that there were a few years that I could get into bars by playing up my “joke birthday” on my driver’s license. Yeah, people are dumb.
May 12th,so it usually lands on or near Mother’s Day (was born on it, actually), which as a kid tended to screw with weekend parties, especially once I got to the age of wanting sleepovers, since Friday/Saturday wasn’t always an option and Saturday/Sunday no one would show up. And it’s still sometimes not possible do something on my actual birthday, because everyone is visiting family.
It’s not a major issue, and generally doesn’t bother me really (far better than being near, say, Christmas), but it is annoying that everyone’s focus tends to be elsewhere that time of year. The more annoying thing is that it lands after university is over for the summer, so by then a lot of my friends are scattered around the continent, and even the ones who are close are too far away to visit.
On the upside though, the weather is usually nice.
October 7, so it sometimes coincides with Columbus Day weekend. This was particularly important for my 25th, as I was having a party on Sunday that people were travelling to. I purposely mentioned the Monday holiday on the invitations so that people wouldn’t be deterred by the the Sunday night thing.
Drat. My 40th will be in 2008 and my birthday falls on a Tuesday nowhere near Columbus Day. I may have to celebrate on Oct 11-13.
My birthday is September 11. Until half a decade ago, the main problem with it was that it was just a couple of weeks after the school cutoff date, so I was usually the oldest kid in class. Of course, this pretty much ended when I got out of school. Nowadays, people are not in much of a celebratory mood on my birthday.
Mine is September 12th. I was actually one of the youngest kids in my class. The cutoff in my area was October something.
I thought it worked out well as a kid. Far enough from Christmas to not be a problem, but close enough to occasionally getting an extra costly present as a combination birthday and Christmas present. That is how I got my first computer at 16. A TI99/4A that I taught myself programming on.
My birthday is the 24th December - I think that even the 26th would be better than the 24th, because at least Christmas is over with - people would come and see me on my birthday and I could almost see the cogs whirring in thier head as they tried to work out all the pre-Christmas tasks they still had to complete and the time remaining to do them in. My parents tried to have birthday parties for me in June/July and that was OK, but that’s the winter in South Africa and it never felt real to me… As a result of all of this, my birthday became really devalued in my eyes, and it wasn’t until I met my wife who came from divorced parents, and for whom birthdays were the best day of the year because it was the only time her parents came together, that I began to celebrate them again.
I lived in Ohio for most of my life. The weather was almost lousy that day. Many birthday parties were lightly attended because of inclement weather. Also, most toy stores were sold out of everything back then.
In high school, I had exams over my birthday most of the time.
In college and adulthood, I tend to fall into that 'everyone is broke." trap. In college, people had just paid tuition and books, and were strapped until their next check came in. As an adult, people are receiving their credit card bills. I’ve taken to celebrating around Super Bowl Sunday as that is often the first time people are in the mood to do anything after the holidays.
May 31. Usually nice weather. On the other hand, the only time my birthday falls on the three-day Memorial Day weekend is when it IS Memorial Day (Monday). So if we wanted to go somewhere for a long weekend, we’d be doing the traveling back home on my birthday. Wah. So we haven’t.
Interesting. When I was a kid, my school district set the cutoff for kindergarten at December 1st, and I was born on December 3rd. So until I skipped 7th grade, I was usually the oldest kid in my class.
Having a birthday right after Thanksgiving and right before Christmas isn’t that great. I definitely get the combined gift thing, and trying to wrangle people for a get-together can be like herding cats. I feel like I get this orgy of celebration once a year, and the rest of the year is blah.
My husband’s birthday is June 13, which I think is an excellent day, and I’ve always been jealous.
feppytweed, we share a birthday! I was born back in the dark ages (Get off my lawn!) before such new-fangled things as school cutoff dates, so I was actually one of the youngest in my class.
I always liked the timing of my birthday. The weather was usually nice, the school year hadn’t gotten into high gear yet.
My son’s b-day is July 8. The only drawback I’ve noticed is that early July is not a good time to try to get kids together for a party. Too many people on vacation. For me, it’s been great! Cheap parties! Set up the slip-in-slide in the backyard, fill a tub with water balloons, and let’em have at it.
November 1st. No real plusses or minuses, but I always associate it with Halloween. And I was always allowed to have candy for breakfast on my birthday.
Me on All Saint’s Day. My brother on Thanksgiving. My sister on Easter. My father on May Day. My great grandmother on Christmas.
I was born on August 8th. It’s a great time to have a birthday: high summer in Ontario, the weather is usually good, it’s summer holidays, and it’s far from Christmas.
My friends’ son was born on December 26th. He’s only three, so I’m not sure that the general nastiness of that date for a birthday has sunk in yet.
For me, the only lousy part of it was that in my school district, the cutoff age for starting kindergarten was Dec 31, so I was always one of the oldest in my class. I don’t know why that bothered me, but it did. Weird, huh?
Being the oldest of 5, I never had birthday parties in the traditional sense. My mom was stay-at-home (pretty typical in the 50s and 60s) and there’s no way they could afford parties for all of us - especially my 3 sisters whose birthdays fell within a 2-week period in late April/early May. The best we got was our choice of dinner and cake. So birthdays weren’t a big deal.
My birthday is April 20. It’s nicely spaced out with the rest of the gift giving holidays, and it coincides with Easter so rarely that it’s a novelty, rather than an inconvenience (last time was 2003, next time is 2014.) The weather (especially here in Colorado) is pretty hit or miss. It’s right after tax day, which either means that people are strapped for cash, or are enjoying/looking forward to enjoying refunds.
If I had to complain, I’d say that the biggest problem is that the calendar picture for April always seems to suck. Other than that, I get a lot of, “Your birthday is 420? Cool birthday!” :rolleyes: A few months ago the grocery store cashier carded me for alcohol and, as he handed me back my driver’s license, said “Nice birthday.” I was sorely tempted to put on my best innocent face and ask “Why do you say that?”
My B-Day is August 30. Sucked when I was a kid, as it sometimes coincided with the start of school, so you know what I got for my birthday (school clothes and more school clothes). Now it’s pretty cool because it’s near Labor Day weekend, so it’s easy to plan B-Day weekend trips!
Especially since I got married. Because now that day is never only about me.
Because it means that I have to go gift-shopping, which I hate, FOR MY OWN FRICKING BIRTHDAY. Because I can never just indulge myself that day, take the day off from work, hit a bar, stagger home at 1am reeking of booze . . . no, I have to be there for a Valentine’s Day dinner, because I have to prove my love to you, apparently I’m not putting forth enough effort on the other 364 days of the year, so I have to sacrifice my one special day to satisfy YOU, are you happy??!?
My birthday is June 14, which is a good time of year - nice weather, school’s almost out, etc. The only downside was my brother’s birthday is May 31st, so two weeks apart sucks. We alternated years for birthday parties, if it was my year to have a party, he got to invite one friend and vice versa. Essentially, we shared a birthday all through childhood. We did not get along well enough for that to be a good thing.
Now that I am all grown up, it’s not a big deal. I actually forgot my birthday a few years ago.
