My dad does this. He says he budgets $100 for a birthday or Christmas present for his kids, but has no problem just buying me one gift worth $200. I don’t mind that, either.
This year he took me to a gun show and bought me a 357 Magnum. I didn’t even let him wrap it. 
For an adult, sure, that makes sense. But for a little kid?
My birthday is very near Christmas, so when I was still a young child my dad suggested we celebrate my half-birthday instead. Everyone was on board except mom, who never seemed entirely clear on the concept. Now, thirty years later, everyone still acknowledges my half-birthday, and dad is so cool he even sends a card for my real birthday, too.
You’d think with mom being a purist and clinging to my real birthday, that she would be sure to do something about it every year. But no, she’s entirely forgotten my birthday at least three times.
And even with the half-birthday initiative, I’m pretty sure I’ve never had a birthday party with more than the immediate family attending.
Bitch, bitch, bitch. Your birthday, or a day near it, is celebrated by people all over the world. My wedding anniversary is an international day of mourning. Yeah, September E-freakin’-leventh. And my birthday is a week after that. Bah.
Well, my Dad’s birthday is on the 18th, and he also hates the double-duty gifts. It is insulting, as far as I’m concerned, since the rest of us get normal birthday presents, and later in the year, Christmas presents. Even though I’m a spring baby, I go out of my way for all of my friends who are born in December, and my Dad, and make sure they always get a proper birthday cake (and NOT a red and green cake!) and make sure their presents (which are never Christmas ornaments!) are wrapped up nicely in birthday paper, not leftover Christmas paper, with a proper birthday card. When Christmas comes, they get Christmas gifts, wrapped in Christmas paper, with Christmas cards. If people are feeling the crunch, seriously, go buy the birthday present in the summer, or during a month you don’t feel so financially oppressed. It’s nice to think of someone else’s feelings once in a while. :rolleyes:
Happy Birthday, Lord Ashtar! hands out birthday presents wrapped in proper birthday paper, with a birthday card that says “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”
Happy birthday, Lord Ashtar, and best wishes for staying forever young.
One of my sons was born, not on Xmas Eve but very close. Same problem.
Could not have his birthday parties at the gym/pinata place in the mall (where every other kid had them, one year) because the mall was too swamped at that time of year.
His classmates were all on break and either out of town or busy–unless their parents wanted to go shopping for 4 hours and have free babysitting during his birthday party. Which they decided just before the party, not bothering to RSVP in either case. (Not that their failure to do so had anything to do with the season, necessarily. )
Really hard to find birthday wrapping paper for his gifts!
To make it worse, absolutely everybody else in the family (his 3 brothers, plus his parents) have birthdays in the summer. Most of us in August.
He didn’t grow up too warped. But I think in the beginning anyway (first 4 years) he thought the whole fuss was about him! You know–the birthday tree, the birthday stockings, the birthday carols . . .
On the plus side, he never had to go to school on his birthday. And he was sent home from the hospital in a Xmas stocking, which was very cute. He was a nice little Christmas package for me and saved me (somewhat) from my annual winter depression, because I could never be depressed on his birthday.
We did get a little stressed out with the money thing but since the birthday came first, it was the Christmas presents that were lacking (and not just his).
My grandfather’s birthday was Dec 24. It wasn’t until he was married he ever got a birthday present or celebration of any kind.
Lord Ashtar, and all other holiday time Dopers, Happy Birthday!
Those of you with December birthdays . . . what do you think of the half birthday in June idea? We did it last year and will do it again this year. Should we keep it up or just celebrate my daughter’s birthday around Christmas instead?
I’m Jewish but my husband’s family is not so we do celebrate Christmas with them.
This is the pit so you can be honest. 
Ashtar,
My sympathies are with you. My own B-day falls Dec. 11th. Money was usually tight, what with buying Christmas gifts for 5 children, so I generally got a “big” and a “little” present, but my Mom at least let me pick which I got for which event. At the time, it sucked (festering, pus-filled carcasses), since everybody else generally got two “bigs”. Way too many years later I realize my parents did their best with a situation not entirely of their making. And now, at 46, I’m just as happy people forget I even have birthdays.
I have a nephew born on Dec. 23rd, and my sister always celebrated his B-day on June 23rd. She said that it was so he wouldn’t feel slighted at Christmas, which I thought was a really fine idea. It took me several years to realize that my sister, who is the most strait-laced puritan I know, also moved the celebration to disguise the inconvenient fact that my nephew’s birthday is only 6 months after their anniversary. :eek: Of course everyone knows that newlyweds can do in 6 or 7 months what it takes normal couples a full 9 months to do.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HOLIDAY-TIME DOPERS!!!
Approximate Phonetic Chinese Version of “Happy Birthday”: (thanks, Nathan!)
“Guung juuk nay fook sow yuen teen tsai, hing hong nay sun sun fie lok. Leen leen doe yao gum yut, suuy doe yao gum jzew, guung hay nay! Guung hay nay!!!”
Approximate English Translation of Above:
“Congrats on this good day of fortune, where we can all gather together. Wishing you a very happy birthday. Every year, this wondrous day arrives; Always, this wondrous time comes. Congratulations! Congratulations!”
Hope you have a good birthday, and a great year to come! 
Well, if it works for you, go ahead and do it - your daughter will grow up looking forward to her half-birthday, and it will be a grand thing at your house. It will be what you make of it. I don’t know why you need to ask us what you should do in your house, since it works for you, and your child knows no different?
I’ve had half-birthdays suggested to me at least every other year since I can remember. I’ve had March 1 (the day I was due) suggested to me, too. But geez. Maybe someday, when somebody with a nice safe May or September birthday suggests I should celebrate my birthday six months after the fact, I’ll ask them to celebrate their birthday six months after the fact too. That’s fair. Sure. In fact, I think everybody should do that - except of course the people who were unfortunate enough to be born June 24 or 25, or July 1 - they can keep THEIR birthdays - because goodness knows, it’s too inconvenient and too expensive to actually spare a shred of thought or energy for someone on the day they were born.
You know the worst of it for me? This year, like most years, I wound up disappointed with my gifts. Not because people didn’t buy me any, and not because I don’t appreciate the sentiments, but because by and large, the people who buy me presents (by this point, husband, in-laws, parents) really don’t know what I would like. I wind up sad. I’d rather people just give me a nice phonecall or send a pretty card, instead of buying some dust-collector bit of home decor that doesn’t match my house or in fact my interests. I wind up sad. Sad because the people who ought to know me, the people who love me best in the world, don’t know me well enough to say “Oh! I know what she loves! She’s been reading about the European theater in WWII, and I know this great book/documentary” or “Hey, she’s cold all the time, and I saw a great fleece vest” or even “Chocolate fits every occasion”. But instead of being disappointed one day, I get to be disappointed two days in a row. So I hit Christmas day with Birthday disappointment hanging over me. Oh, the joyous anticipation and unbridled avarice. Actually my husband generally does pretty well, and my in-laws tend to give cash, but what was my mother thinking this year? I wish she’d saved her money. I love her to bits, but I was so disappointed. She’d been asking me off and on for weeks if I’d peeked at my present yet, and I kept saying no, no, because I can wait, dangit, I’m not 8 years old, and so there was this buildup. And I finally opened it, and it was…so utterly unsuitable, unusable, inappropriate. And I can’t even tell her so, because it’ll hurt her feelings, so next year she’ll get me something in the same theme again because after all, I collect them now, right?
I really think I might just tell parents etc not to buy me anything anymore. I’d rather not go through the whole big crescendo thing and then the let-down anymore. Not two days running every year.
Hmmm…am I the ONLY one who doesn’t feel “stuck with” or “lumbered with” the name Holly? My birthday is December 23rd, and I’ve always liked my name. I was actually born closer to giftmas that I was supposed to be, as I was about 3 weeks early, and Holly was going to be my name anyway. I like my name! It’s common enough that people know how to pronounce it, but in my entire life, I’ve only had one grade in school where there was more than one Holly.
The worst thing about having a birthday near x-mas is that people tend to forget about your birthday in the holiday rush. Sometimes, relatives forget and I’ll end up with a card in the mail a month later. This year, I forgot my own birthday until I got to work and my mom had sent me a happy birthday e-mail.
The best thing about a holiday birthday is that sometimes, if you want something expensive, you can actually get it, b/c people will get you one big gift for both, and then you really get what you want. I still hate it when people wrap my presents in christmas paper. I mean, you’re out at the store anyway, what’s the big deal to just get a birthday bag, or a roll of paper? You do it for everyone else who’s birthday is NOT around christmas.
My daughter’s birthday is one week before Christmas. It’s very difficult to give her the birthday that she deserves for a number of factors:
We do try and make accomodation. Sometimes we have her celebrate her half-birthday in the summer. Last year we had a joint party with her and her brother in mid January, half-way between their birthdays. And I try to remind her that she’s special as often as she’ll let me.
For everyone that’s born around this time of year, please let me speak on behalf of your parents: we love you just as much as if you’d been born any other part of the year. We understand that it’s difficult and will work with you to make you feel special. Let us know how to help.
My birthday is on the 19th. I personally try not to celebrate it, but SWMBO won’t let me get away with that. I turned 56 this year and she still threw a party for me.