My birthday was just a few days ago. January birthdays just suck, especially for the years I’ve spent living in the Midwest. I can’t remember how many times I had people cancel coming to my birthday parties due to crap weather.
During high school, I always had exams on my birthday. During college, everyone was always broke in late January after paying for tuition and buying books.
The only somewhat decent aspect is that my birthday often falls near MLK weekend, so I’ve had a few 3 day weekends for it. However, the last Saturday birthday I had, I woke up with bronchitis from Hell. Exactly what I had dreamed of: Lie in bed and watch Netlfix in my underwear on my Saturday birthday!
December 25. Great birth day: when I was very young, my parents would give me a “school birthday party” during term, so I could have a party. And when I got old, my family /never forgot my birthday/.
Even better, for 50 years /my family always had a family get-together for my birthday/
Even better, you know how things get get a bit tense when all your sisters and brothers are shoe-horned into one house for the day? Well, they got tense, but they were /always nice to me, because it was my birthday/
My sister is Jan 16. That sucks. holiday season is over, and nobody cares.
However, I do remember my birthday falling on a football match day when I turned 10. Now, the club I played for had a policy of substituting one player at random during each match to teach us to think in terms of “team” and not “personal performance”. As you can guess, I was informed I’d be the one who’d leave the pitch early on that day. I pleaded and pleaded with tears in my eyes but to no avail. I was so mad that when I entered the deserted change room, I threw my team jersey in the shower and left it there for the coach to pick up (yeah, I was a real rebel).
I don’t recall caring about when my birthday fell during school. We didn’t have parties because with 5 kids and one income, it just wasn’t going to happen. Birthdays meant you got to pick what you wanted for supper, you could pick what kind of cake Mom would make, and you got $3. For reference, I was born in 1954.
I didn’t have a party till I was in high school and a friend threw me a surprise party. My husband gave me a surprise party once also, but mostly I don’t pay much attention to my birthdays. Mine was last week. Husband was out of town so I had take out sushi and some mini cupcakes. No big deal.
My birthday fell during summer so the day of the week didn’t matter. In school we only had birthday parties through the end of 2nd grade so after that it didn’t matter either. I think during 1st grade I was allowed to pick a day to celebrate my birthday during school.
May 31 here. May 30 was the Memorial Day holiday when I was growing up so I kinda sorta had my birthday off. This was also before the time of school birthday celebrations.
I’m a July baby. When I was in elementary school ('60’s) I remember being kind of bummed, because the birthday kid always brought a treat to school to share with everyone. Usually cookies, some moms would even bring in cakes! All homemade which would never be allowed now.
But I always had great birthdays as a kid. I would have a kids’ party in the afternoon. Since it was summer, the party was usually outside. All the kids from the neighborhood would come. We’d have hot dogs, chips, cake and ice cream. We’d wash it all down with cherry Kool-aid. We’d play the clothespin game and pin the tail on the donkey. Then at night would be the party with relatives; grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
My birthday is also in the middle of summer, so never had the opportunity to celebrate it at school. I loved that it was in summer, by the way. My birthday and Christmas are just about 6 months apart, so it really helped to spread out the give getting.
In my experience, there was zero correlation between birthdays and popularity at school. Especially in middle school. I can’t ever remember one time a big deal having been made about anyone’s birthday.
I was middle of the road in popularity, up sometimes, down others, and I don’t remember caring. It was fun when my birthday was during school; the principal would announce birthdays over the loudspeaker and during the younger grades we’d get to bring in a treat to share. Weekends were fun because there was no school. It was great either way.
I generally preferred weekends as a kid, at school their attempt at a celebration was making everyone sing ‘Happy Birthday’ at me, and I hated that. Mine normally fell in February half term break anyway though, so no school. Unfortunately, that was a really common week to go away skiing, though we never did, lots of my school friends did, so wouldn’t come to my parties.
As as adult, it just annoys me that it’s just a few days after Valentine’s day, which means going out for dinner with friends tends to be expensive, booked out, and places are running obnoxious couples events.