What's the bigger annual present holiday, birthdays or Christmas?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I always thought of someone’s birthday as their biggest holiday for gifts, or the one on which you give them the best present you’re going to give them all year. I figured:

  1. it’s at a random point of the year so you’re not being drained financially from having to give everyone a gift,
  2. it really makes someone feel special on their day that they don’t (usually) have to share with others,
  3. if there’s a party or something, you’ll be more likely to have a birthday gift and associated cheapness or thoughtfulness or whatever displayed in front of everyone else, or talked about afterwards (if you care about that sort of thing),

and probably some other stuff too, this is the first time I’ve really thought about it. I just always thought the birthday was supposed to be everyone’s main gift holiday. But, I discovered a while ago that a friend of mine believes the opposite, to the point that she’ll save up to get everyone fairly expensive Christmas gifts, but may overlook a birthday gift altogether or go for a little gag gift (no, this is not a hidden-bitterness-at-a-crummy-birthday-gift rant).

I just remembered this as I saw someone mention something like it in another thread. I’m really curious - which one is it for you, and why?

Of course I suppose this doesn’t apply if your biggest present occasion is some other day, you don’t give presents, you boycott all religious holidays, you only care about religious holidays, you’re disgusted at what you see as my gift grubbing agenda, etc, etc.

2

Ahh, crap. I JUST found the thread on whether birthdays are for women and kids, in which a lot of these types of opinions come out. So I won’t feel bad if this thread is stillborn, though I’d still welcome it happily if anyone has particular insights to share.

3

HA! You forget all of us with birthdays within a week or two of Christmas. You don’t want to know how many combo gifts I’ve been given.

For me, Christmas is definitely the bigger gift-receiving and giving holiday. Birthdays tend to be smaller gifts; Christmas is the big one.

4

As an adult, birthdays are almost a non-event & Christmas is where all the gift giving & getting happens.

As a child, Christmas was a massive gift overload from the parents. If I’d ever had a birthday party with 75 kids coming over, I mighta had a bigger-than-christmas haul that day. But I wasn’t the absolute most popular little kid & my parents weren’t into showcase/showoff parties, so my birthday parties tended to be a dozen kids or so.

Also, as a kid, birthday presents from the other kids tend to all be fairly minor items (e.g. no bicycles), so the parents would be the source for any major items at either birthday or Christmas. In my case, Christmas got the emphasis.