December birthday folks don't want red and green
And now, a shout out to all the good people who have had their December birthdays overshadowed by the holidays for their entire lives. I feel your pain, I hear your cries. I also hear Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” playing in the background and I know all you want is a birthday present that wasn’t wrapped up in red and green.
According to online resources, the months of July-October are the most popular months to be born, with August and September holding the highest number of birthdays. I personally contribute to this statistic, with a late July birthday that always has been fantastic. Tank tops, shorts, waterslides and tanned faces in the classic pose with the cake pictures. One of our children shares a similar birthday, but the other two fall smack between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I feel like I slight them every year.
We have tried many tactics to honor these birthdays that are squeezed in. We’ve firmly put our foots down and said “No tree until after the birthday party!” but that cuts the Christmas season shorter than we’d like. We’ve tried to convince ourselves the shopping sales that happen simultaneously mean they get extra presents, but really we’re stuck facing the same dilemma each year…should this gift be for a birthday or Christmas?
Cake and candles get lost between the pie and cookies
And then there’s the cake, which no one really wants to eat because we’ve been gorging ourselves on pie and cookies for weeks, and I would be lying if I said that one year we couldn’t find candles so we just lit a big one that smelled like the scents of the season and set next to the cake, to blow out. There’s also the scramble to find wrapping paper that isn’t covered in smiling Santa Claus faces and snowmen and some of the presents are things like Christmas socks.
But December is supposed to be a season of celebration. Regardless of your religious affiliation, we can all revel in the thought we made it through another year, whether it be a birthday year or a calendar year. And if you’ve got a December birthday, it’s a chance to do all those things at the same time. (This is the part where we try to make it all positive and wonderful!)
Plenty of folks will gather during this month, and December babies, your big day never be forgotten like a spring baby. You’ll be honored and showered with at least one extra present, and if you’re lucky, the balloons on the wrapping paper will match the candles on your cake. And neither will be red and green.
Reach Karrie McAllister at mckarrie@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: It takes extra effort to party hearty when birthday is in December
