No. I may get cards from my siblings but I am in my 50s and single so there are no special events.
Thank God.
Usually my daughter and parents will have a cake for me or we’ll go out to eat. We do that for all of our birthdays. I’ll be 39 later this year. I don’t ignore or avoid my birthday, but don’t feel the need to have any big celebration either.
In a vacuum, yes. However, my wife’s birthday is the week prior and she doesn’t like to celebrate, so I’d feel like a bit of a dick if I respected her wishes by not organizing anything for her, but then told our friends, “by the way, we’re having a party for me!” So on balance I don’t like celebrating it because of that.
A nice dinner with family and a (very) few close friends? Sure, I’m all in! It’s an excuse to get together with people I care about, and I’ll never turn those down!
I see no problem with celebrating birthdays. As an adult, it comes down to something nice with a close friend or relative–being taken out for a nice dinner, or going to see a show.
But grownups who act like their birthdays are actually something that should be important to other people are annoying–people who get in a bad mood because people aren’t treating them “special” on their birthdays. Yuck.
I celebrate my birthday Hobbit-style, by giving gifts to others. I used to bake cupcakes and take them in for students and colleagues. Now I make only one batch and give them to friends, the maintenance people, and unsuspecting delivery drivers. I don’t like using a birthday to measure how important I am. I’d rather focus on how lucky I am to be here.
And I always get a small bottle of champagne and toast my late parents.
Yes, I’m a sap, but I’m a happy one. Sappy Birthday to me (in September)!
I love celebrating my birthday. The problem is noone else does 
I’m with AngelSoft. I’d love celebrate my birthday, but it’s generally ignored. It’s smack dab in the Winter Holidays, and everyone forgets.
Maybe this year I’ll be moved into my house enough to just schedule it myself.
I never really got into it. My birthday is December 9th, my father and brother December 5th; with all three of us having birthdays at basically the same time and it being a few weeks before Christmas they were always fairly perfunctory for us.
My mother got much more of a birthday celebration in February.
Nah, I don’t really care about my birthday. It’s just a number.
Been thinking about this lately because my 65th birthday is coming up, and my sisters want to throw me a party. My attitude is, OK, if all I have to do is show up.
Nope. This was the first year I got no birthday wishes on facebook and I couldn’t be happier. I like doing something with family, but I wish that friends and coworkers would forget about it.
I don’t want a huge party or more stuff (I am seriously trying to downsize my pile of stuff these days) but I do like some acknowledgement of it.
Do NOT pull crap like saying I’m 29 or something completely stupid like that - I am not ashamed of my age (although I don’t share it’s exact number on the internet) and have no problem with being in my mid-50’s.
I like celebrating my birthday, but that’s purely because I like the cake and presents and hanging out with the family and the presents.
I don’t really like celebrating anyone’s birthday all that much, mine least of all.
The last really fun birthday I can remember was when I turned 22, was living alone in a nasty little dump and was trying not to feel sorry for myself on my birthday when lo and behold a carload of my friends drove up singing happy birthday, bringing vodka (I don’t think they brought anything else). That was half a century ago though.
I like my own birthday because I’m always glad to have survived another solar orbit. I always believed I’d never see 70, but now it’s just 1.7 orbits away.
So I enjoy having my handful of very closest people remember my BD because it suggests they’re glad I’m still alive, but a few words is enough to make me happy. Don’t need or want obligatory gifts and hoop-tee-doos.
Who doesn’t like a celebration? And a birthday is as good an excuse as any.
Me. Don’t want anything, not at work, not at home. Not with co-workers, not with friends, not with family.
"I do not like it in a house,
I do not like it with a mouse.
I do not like it here or there,
I do not like it anywhere. "
I’ve never understood the b-day thing; if you’re young (& presumably want more) or if you’re old (& presumably want less) you still get the same # of them. If you’re rich (& can afford a blowout bash) or poor (& can’t even afford a cupcake) you still get the same # of them. Unlike an anniversary, either work or with an SO, where there’s some effort involved, short of suicide there’s nothing you can do to make them come faster or slower or stop entirely.
As for me, I hate, hate, hate 'em; haven’t done one in over 30 years. I don’t tell people when it is, & those I do tell I make sure they know not to do anything for it. There’s very few places that need to know my exact b-day so I frequently fill out wrong ones; sometimes it’s just a different day in the month for things that might matter; other forms I put in something like April 31[sup]st[/sup].
So, today is my birthday (shut up).
My gf has it worked out that we will be going out for celebratory dinners tonight, tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday. I’m going to grin and bare it, but it is far from ideal. We were just on vacation in the Caribbean and I could do without the expense of four consecutive restaurant meals. Plus, I’m old.
I have always been among those that said “no fuss, please” but now I may be changing my view. Usually my husband and I go out to dinner, and he gives me a card and a gift or two (usually clothing that I don’t want, but he likes to shop for clothes so I grin and bear it).
My next birthday will be my 70th, and maybe just this once I’d like to have a big party thrown for me, with everyone who cares about me at all there and having a good time. It wouldn’t actually be THAT big a party, because there aren’t that many such people, but I can think of a dozen or so I would like to be there.
I know it isn’t going to happen, and I’m not all broken up about it, but I don’t get that much affirmation on a regular basis, so maybe once in a while it would be nice. Give folks a chance to say nice things about me without waiting for a funeral.