Yeah, I’m also kinda surprised that the OP is getting blamed for something as well. There is no harm in venting to online strangers while never once even considering acting in public.
I will say that workplace cultures are all different and strange to the noobs. That being said, I never worked on my birthday. It saved so many hassles.
Interesting observation. You may well be right.
This is what the word always makes me think of:
You should build a time machine, go back in time, and offer Mary contraceptives such that she can choose when she wants to become a mother rather than leaving it up to God. Jesus won’t be born until much later, and your birthday will become much better.
Edit
oh, sorry
Well, actually …. 
(Insert spiel on the origin of the date of Christmas)
By the way, I just want to mention that my family does birthdays. My other always said she didn’t want anything on Mother’s Day (although she did appreciate phone calls and such) but she wanted us to remember her birthday. And I, too, like my family to recognize my birthday. My birthday tribute is a home-made cake. (I bake the favorite dessert for everyone else’s birthday, but my husband makes mine.)
That being said, I don’t really like birthday celebrations at work. There are too many of them, and it seems a little weird. But I always take my birthday as a personal holiday, so I avoid any weirdness about my own birthday in the office.
Still, I think family birthday celebrations can be non-toxic and pleasant.
If you have the privilege and good fortune of a non-toxic and pleasant family.
Indeed. I am often happy to enjoy that privilege.
You have unerringly zeroed in on what makes this plan impractical. Well done.
Counter plan: convince everyone on Earth to stop celebrating Christmas in December, since it’s wrong.
Should be easy enough.
It is pretty low level as far as bad workplace behavior goes, but it just happened to touch your nerve. That’s unfortunate, and no amount of “stop thinking about it” recommendations will be helpful to you. If it’s any comfort, I too have a pet peeve: people who use “literally” wrong. I automatically dismiss such people as not worthy of being in my space.
I concur with the recommendations to ignore her announced birthday, but also ignore the mild inappropriateness of her announcing it. Continue to show her that your institutional culture promotes respect and appreciation for competent work and teamship, without requiring faux-social fussing and center-of-attention status over strictly personal events like birthdays. Definitely do not encourage the impression that your organization or individual co-workers are expected to spend any money and/or effort on birthday celebrations.
I would ignore the birthday circumstance altogether, but make sure to say something nice at the meeting about this employee’s work. If she mentions her birthday at the meeting, and/or if another co-worker wishes her a happy birthday, I’d chime in casually but pleasantly, “Oh yes, happy birthday, EmployeeName!” and then switch right over to saying something nice about her work.
In the unlikely event that she then throws a sulk about not having her birthday properly appreciated by her co-workers, that’s when you can have a tactful but firm private conversation about the organization not making a practice of spending any workday time on personal socializing. But you nonetheless appreciate and value her excellent work, as you just mentioned at the meeting.
In the even more unlikely event that she’s still miffed about the lack of fuss over her birthday, I think you’re gonna need a different employee. One whose job satisfaction is not dependent on having co-workers take up workday time with faux-social celebrations of personal events.
I wholeheartedly concur with your advice, @Kimstu.
I realized, as I was writing up the minutes, that it is likely she’ll receive some birthday wishes because the last item in the template for minutes is “announcements.” In the past those have always been things like “We will be closed for repairs on Tuesday Nov. 22” or “We’ve added an extra day to the ocean debris exhibit.” But, I asked for announcements and I got that one about her birthday, so I’m not going to leave it out. Kind of a test if anybody reads the minutes or just approves them without looking. If she gets no birthday wishes I will assume it is the latter.
This. My SIL’s family is huge on birthdays, mine not so much. I’m lucky if all of my brothers manage to text me. But my SIL’s family insists that everyone go out to eat and that the birthday person have special plans for the weekend before or after like a trip that involves a B&B, etc., just so they can tell the family about it. That’s their thing. The new co-worker will learn to adjust to real-world expectations eventually. Don’t let it bother you.
She may have sounded like your mother gaslighting you but, like your mom, she needs to adjust her expectations to reality. Most people successfully do. If she doesn’t, she won’t be with your company for long anyway.
FYI, I have a friend who’s mother sounded a lot like yours. He has PTSD, which sounds a bit like your response. Therapy can help.
My older son’s is December 24th. He’s ok with it. At that time it was the best Xmas ever for my husband and me. They put the babies in little Santa kimonos and we all slept the day away. Me in the bed, baby in the bassinet, and hubby in the chair (he didn’t mind he could sleep anywhere.) No running to my folks his folks etc.
As for the OP. I understand CC’s discomfort. However, I’ve never worked in an office; I’m not really getting the “inappropriate” “unprofessional” discussion. For, me I wouldn’t bring it up because around 40ish, I stopped “enjoying” my bdays.
At our store, we used to have a bday treat in the back. Ii was usually the bday persons fav. Our store got much bigger and we don’t do it anymore. Though my recently retired boss always got us a bday card and left it in our lockers. I really liked that and felt it was pretty thoughtful.
You would have hated the last office I worked in (I’ve been 100% remote since 2014) as we were an entirely paper-free office, so when a manila file folder showed up, you knew a card was inside for someone’s birthday.
My brother doesn’t remember anybody’s birthdays. My bday was Nov. 9th, and my sister called him and asked him what day it was. He had no idea. Then, she asked them about others’ bdays, and he was way off. At least, my nephew and grandnephew have the same bday – Bastille Day! Since they’re partly French (my BiL is of French-Canadian background), it makes it easy to remember.
Speaking of triggers related to birthday celebrations in the workplace …
Many many years ago I was working at a software company. I think I’d only worked there for a couple of months. I had not mentioned to anyone when my birthday was. On the day of my birthday, the boss suddenly came through the office and announced that there was an emergency company-wide meeting. The whole company (maybe 50 people) stopped what they were doing and filed into a meeting room. It turned out that my new girlfriend had hired one of those singing birthday-gram people to come to my office and sign Happy Birthday to me, and my boss had gone along with it. I stood there at the front of the room while this woman sang a cringey version of Happy Birthday to me and the whole company watched bemusedly. I was absolutely mortified.
I tried to gently tell my girlfriend that I appreciated the thought but not to do that again. She was offended that I didn’t appreciate her gesture. For years afterwards, the idea of getting public recognition of my birthday would make me break out in a cold sweat.
Oh my. I feel your pain. I know there are people who enjoy being the center of attention that way, but I don’t understand it at all (and those who do enjoy it probably have no idea why some of us cringe in horror).
I would have moved to a different part of the country. I don’t even like it when friends sing that to me.
When I was in college someone did that for Valentine’s Day in a huge lecture hall. The professor was furious and I didn’t blame him.
Oh, oh, oh @CairoCarol could get a hunky surfer dude to come and sing at the board meeting.
If such a thing happened to me, I would have quit my job, left the state and maybe even the country. I would have gotten a good look first cause hunky surfer dude are worth it.