I’ve always been a big birthday person. I’m the reason you groan when you hear about someone’s “birthday week/month,” but I’ll tell you why I am that person a little later in this post.
I have to say as a kid, I never really enjoyed having a December birthday. There is a lot going on with the holidays; people are broke, the famous 2-in-1 gift, schedules are extremely busy, you are stuck to indoor events and we wait all year for one big celebration.
Although, my family did a pretty good job at being considerate of my feelings around my birthday. Growing up they would ask me if I wanted decorations up or down so as not to take away from my birthday. I always said leave them up because they were pretty.
In my pre-teen and teenage years, my birthday parties were less and less because as I grew up, my friends grew up and started traveling for the holidays. My birthday celebrations turned into small sleepovers with cake. Don’t get me wrong, I am 100% grateful for those parties and we had fun during our time. As a pre-teen and teenager, I felt like I was missing out. I wasn’t getting the full experience.
I kind of took those feelings with me into college too. Everyone went home for winter break and since I went to college in town my friends here traveled somewhere else.
I’m not sure where my “it’s time to celebrate” mood came from but it had to be right around my 23rd birthday. I went all out and did a birthday week. The adult birthday party themes came out. I didn’t care if one person showed up or 17 I wanted to have a party.
Do you know what happened? I had 10+ people each night that came out and celebrated. That was when it hit me. With my birthday being in the middle of Christmas and New Year’s people are just waiting for the next holiday. Why stop the celebration? Let’s keep on plowing through.
So from then on, I made plans between Christmas and New Year to fill the time and keep the spirits high. I even made it a joint birthday week after a while. All the December babies come together and wear sashes or birthday swag.
What it comes down to is I love a good party. I love being surrounded by friends and family. My birthday seems like a good reason to do that.
I’ve come to love my birth date now. It is a magical time of year, people are still high in spirit from the holidays, and not too many birthdays happen during this week.
I love to celebrate my birthday because that’s how I choose to spend my time! Some people might think I’m selfish or vain for doing so but that just tells me they celebrate differently for their birthday. It is one day a year where you can celebrate YOU with other people. Regardless of how you celebrate, it’s a time to be proud of who you are and how far you have come.
How do you celebrate your birthday? Any December babies out there that go all out to make their date known?
