Christmas B-Days-- how do you handle them?

[vanessab23]

I wanted to pose this question to you seasoned parents. My son just had his first birthday-- which is December 27th. This year didn't matter to him, but I already saw it as the beginning of years of forgotten birthdays. (Dp and I got a cake and sang with the ILs just before we headed back home after the christmas holiday, but there weren't any gifts, or any cards or anything to indicate that my ILs even remembered. How hard is it to hold a couple christmas presents back and give them on the 27th, just so DS will feel like people care?). As a midwife, BIRTH days are very important to me to celebrate in some way. Doesn't have to be with lots of gifts, but some time & day to make the birthday kid feel special. I felt so protective of my son & it made me so mad! This may seem rediculous-- anyone know what I'm talking about here?

Any advice you can share on how you handle a birthday that come so close to christmas that it gets forgotten? Anything you've heard that works? Tips?

I've heard some folks celebrate at the half b-day (ie; June). But then I guess you could run into issues with school being out for the summer (that's another tough one-- I am a summer baby)

An idea I had was to celebrate early. Like around Thanksgiving (since there are no presents for that holiday, and we are likely to be with family) or even in October. Pros & Cons?

And when would this begin to matter to DS? At what stage is he likely to notice, or be upset, or want more of a separate, special celebration?

Anything else I should know about how to make his birthdays special and avoid him feeling "forgotten"? Someone told me to NEVER wrap his birthday presents in Christmas wrapping-- make sense!

Thanks for reading this far!

[earthmama369]

I'm a Christmas baby. My parents always celebrated my birthday with family on Christmas Day, but I had a kids party on my half-birthday in June as well, because more friends were around then.

On Christmas, we'd do stockings and presents in the morning, but lunchtime was all about me.

My mother would do a birthday cake, no holiday themes, I'd get to pick the lunch menu, and I'd get a few presents -- *always* wrapped in birthday paper -- from my parents and grandparents.

Then in June I'd have a regular ol' party just like any other kid.

I never felt cheated or neglected for being born on a holiday. If anything, I pitied other kids for having to wait a WHOLE year for every birthday.

[vanessab23]

that's awesome sarah! your family is great.

at a young age was it confusing to have two separate parties? or-- when does it become more clear (and as you said a benefit)? did you ever wonder why your friends wern't at your house on your b-day, or did you understand that your "other" party was six months away?

[hubris]

I'm sorry things got mashed together and you feel like your son was overlooked this year. For the relatives who didn't give a birthday gift - do they give *other* kids in the family a birthday gift? If not, I'd overlook it. Nobody has to give a birthday present. But if they give other children Christmas presents on Christmas and birthday presents on birthdays, I'd talk to them about this.


DS1 is a Christmas baby - literally, born on Christmas day. It's a LOT to celebrate all in one day!

So far he likes it. He told us this year that "the whole world is getting ready for my birthday!" when he saw Christmas decorations around town. He associates the tree, the advent calendar countdown, all of it...with his birthday. It's like he gets to celebrate for a month. What a head trip! I'm hoping that he continues to feel happy about what a fun day his birthday is, and not feel cheated out of having a separate special day.

That said, we do some things to preserve the specialness of the celebration of his birth...

• We do celebrate his birthday on the day of his birth. I would not want my birthday completely shunted off to another day, you know? So there will always be a birthday cake and birthday presents on that day, and a family celebration. We tend to do our Christmas celebrating in the morning, and our birthday celebrating in the evening - meal he likes, cake, singing, presents. If we are spending Christmas day with DH's family or my family, they are part of the birthday celebration.
  
• I try to plan the evening meal so that the birthday stuff is not rushed and right before bedtime. That happened for a couple of his birthdays and it felt icky to me. Quick! Eat! Quick! Cake! Quick! Presents! Goodnight! Ugh.
  
• Also on the calming-things-down end, DH and I are starting to take a stand about preserving our Christmas day. We will not run frantically around trying to shove visits in. We will have a leisurely morning with our children. We will plan a simple visit at our home or my parents' home. We will not try to cram too much into too little time. Everybody should *enjoy* the celebrations, you know?
  
• We do, of course, talk about his birthday all day long. I just mean that the party stuff is on the evening of his birthday.
  
• We do not wrap birthday presents in Christmas paper. We do not put them under the tree. (If he ever wants them under the tree, that's his choice, but so far he hasn't made that choice.) We have asked relatives who give gifts to respect the separation of Christmas and birthday and wrap their gifts accordingly. Nobody has had any problem with that.
  
• Now that he's old enough to want a party with friends, we plan that after the holidays. Ideally, I'd like to do it the first weekend after school is back in session. That didn't work out this year and we're having to do it in early February. I don't see our plan as much different than any other birthday party plan - after all, when I was a kid, my party was often on a Saturday *close* to my birthday, not on my actual birthday (which I celebrated with just my family).
  
• His preschool has a "birthday circle" and we are doing that this month.
  
• In the future, his preferences will guide how we celebrate. If he ever wants a half-birthday party instead of trying to plan one closer to his birthday, we'll talk about different options with him and plan something together.

[ELKMama]

My ds doesn't have a Christmas birthday, but my mom's was the 26th and sil's is too. Both my family and dh's family always have / had a normal birthday -- cake, special meal, gifts wrapped in birthday paper -- for these family members. My mom had grown up with joint Christmas-birthday gifts and events and was so pleased that my dad was happy to do it up right for her special day. So I think your efforts are important!

[vanessab23]

thanks & update

Thanks everyone for your advice!

I should add, that my DS's 5 yr old cousin has a dec 31st b-day (and I brought special presents for her for that). Almost all my ILs live in San Antonio and they celebrated her b-day in early January together. So, yes all the relatives give gifts to the other two kids in the family and there will be no excuse to forget Miles, even if we don't live around the corner or see them at x-mas-- they can send something, even a card. We were at their house for x-mas this year so it was in their faces and should've been remembered. We had the cake at grandma's house (funshine-- I hear you about the cupcakes. only a couple people ate a piece of cake... but what got me the most was that I said be here at 11am, b/c we needed to hit the road, and they all showed up at 12pm and within 10 mins had left to go shopping at target! I was like, "Uummm this is a BIRTHDAY PARTY! Where did everyone go?" I was more than annoyed. I guess I just felt so protective of Miles!

I guess this is just good practice for me-- so that when he begins to understand and CARE, I will know what to do and say so that both sides of the family come through.

P.S. Even my side of the family flaked. But at least my mom flaked on BOTH christmas AND birthday stuff. I will have a heart to heart with her soon about preparing for the coming b-days.

TIA and keep it coming!

[TripMom]

My triplets bday is Dec 14 - and I am also concerned about the bday getting eclipsed by the holidays - and other peoples holiday plans, etc.

We've decided to celebrate with a bday party a week or 2 early. Then - on their actual bday day do a small family celebration - where we give them their gift and have bday cake.

We've also decided to be very careful to make it a 'bday' - no hint of "holiday" celebration. I am trying to also be very careful to not "scrimp" on their bday gift because of all the Xmas expenses - or give them a "combo" xmas gift, etc. Its hard though - seems like no matter how hard I try, Xmas is sooo expensive. Then to do bday on top of that. YIKES!

[sparkeze]

My birthday is Dec 27th too. As long as I can remember I felt like I got the raw end of the deal as far as birthdays go...until I stopped caring about my birthday anyways! My mom always made a special birthday breakfast, just like on my siblings' birthdays, and I had birthday parties and all that but the present thing was annoying. I got Christmas (and as an afterthought, it's your birthday present too) gifts from a lot of people, although in my immediate family there were always separate gifts. The only thing nice was that I could pick a bigger gift since I could ask for something that was for Christmas and my birthday.

I think some things that might help are to have the party before Christmas, have some kind of special tradition for that day so that the whole family looks forward to that day, send out birthday invitations, use birthday wrapping paper, talk to close relatives about your desire to make the birthday special in light of the date. Obviously there's nothing you can do to change the date so you just have to do what you think will make your DS feel special for his birthday, and that may vary with age.

HTH!

[lrlittle]

Hi there
Just had to chime in since mine is the 26th. It does suck during the school years because friends seem to forget about it. BUT it's also cool because there's a "built-in" party since I'm always with family on my birthday. I'm never lonely on my birthday! We had a tradition of going out to eat for dinner on my birthday (I pick ) to kind of get away from all the Christmas food, etc. I still hold on to that tradition and we do that with my inlaws when we're with them for the holidays. Everyone is usually ready for a meal out anyway. Growing up (and now if we're together) my mom always made me the cake I wanted and wrapped presents in birthday paper. Separate presents from family were always important. Sometimes I found that MORE people remember it because they felt sorry for me and it just stuck out to them that my birthday was the day after Christmas.

As a kid we talked a lot about doing the half year thing but it never worked. It seemed weird and contrived for some reason. It just didn't FEEL like my birthday! But I've heard of others doing it. We just had the party sometime during Christmas vacation. I don't remember there ever being any issues with that. Something fun for people to do while they're out of school, I guess.

HTH

[Stayseeliz]

My sister's kids both have bday's close to Christmas. On is Dec. 24th and the other the first week of January. I have a bday two weeks after Christmas too and I didn't like it growing up! This year my niece who was turning 4 on Christmas Eve said "Mommy, I wish my birthday was some other time. It's just not as fun this way!" I agree!!

Something my sister does is to have her birthday party a couple of weeks before Christmas. This reminds people it is separate. I'd also say something to in law's so they remember you'll want to celebrate at a different time.

Also make sure to never wrap bday presents in Christmas paper and maybe save a few things for after Christmas?

I know it's hard!!

[Gray's Mommy]

December is an extremely busy birthday month for us...we have 4 of them!
7th-mine, 8th-our niece, 22nd-our son, 26th-my DH...
My goal is to make sure that our son's b-day is seperate from Christmas. I make it very clear that we are having a birthday party & to family I ask for seperate gifts-no combo's here. I don't care what friends do, but family respects my request. They know that it stinks to get combo gifts

We haven't had any problems to date about keeping the day special for our son.

[RedWine]

My birthday is December 22, and dd1's is December 28.

I always thought it was great to have a "Christmas birthday." My parents always made sure my sister and I got equal numbers of presents for birthdays and Christmas (her birthday is in August). I got to have a small "brithday tree" with all my birthday presents underneath it. So to me, at Christmastime I raked in twice as many presents as anyone else.

I am continuing the "birthday tree" tradition with my oldest. She has a real little Christmas tree with her birthday presents underneath it, while the family has a huge Christmas tree with everyone's Christmas presents underneath it. Relatives have been good at not forgetting her birthday. She's only 4, but I'll make sure folks keep on not forgetting.

[GalateaDunkel]

I have a cousin whose birthday is December 25.

Every year the big extended-family Christmas celebration is at grandma's house. In the afternoon, my cousin's family would go back to their own house (they live very close) and have a full-scale birthday party for her, with as much birthday presents as their other kids got, birthday-theme cake decorations etc. No holding Christmas presents back and calling them birthday presents - the other kids in the family just had to deal with the fact that she got twice as much, because HEY, IT'S HER BIRTHDAY! My uncle told me it was very important to them to make sure she knew her birthday was just as important and real as any other kid's. Granted, the holiday overlap made it difficult to include peers from school etc., but my cousin never had to doubt its importance to her family.

Honestly, I think their approach is the only way that's really fair to the child. If they birthday's not even actually on the 25th, but just near to that date, it seems like you'd have even less reason to do it any other way.

[Nosy]

Jumping in to ask, if you do a half-birthday for your holiday baby, do you do a half-birthday for your other DC? I have one holiday baby and one not, and I can assure you that non-holiday baby will be wondering where his half-birthday party is if brother gets one. I think the whole idea of a half-birthday is fun, though.

[charmander]

I have a friend whose son's BD is Dec. 22. They celebrate by having a summer party at the end of June instead.

My DS was born at the end of November. Every couple of years his birthday is on Thanksgiving. If he is having a birthday party with friends that year, we just move it up a couple of weeks so it isn't so close to the holiday. If it is just family, we celebrate it right on the day.

[Monkeypants]

Our 6 yo DD's Bday is Dec 24. For the past 3 years we have had a birthday party with her friends a couple of weeks before christmas. We decorate cookies (not nesisarily Christmas ones, DD chooses what we make- this year we made mostly dinosaurs and musical instruments) Then on her birthday we have a small party with just family, do her birthday ring, tell the story of her birth and give her her gifts. The cookie party is no-gift, unless one of her friends wants to make something for her. So far it has worked out great and she has been really happy. We've thought about doing a half birthday in June, but the cookie party is really fun, and turning into a tradition.
I think it is a bit trickier having a birthday after Christmas; all these responses have been really interesting!

[earthmama369]

Originally Posted by vanessab23

that's awesome sarah! your family is great.

at a young age was it confusing to have two separate parties? or-- when does it become more clear (and as you said a benefit)? did you ever wonder why your friends wern't at your house on your b-day, or did you understand that your "other" party was six months away?

I don't remember having it any different. I think when I was young enough to potentially get confused, I didn't have enough time-sense for it to matter. By the time I realized I was getting two parties every year, I was old enough to realize what a deal I was getting.

[wifty]

Interesting thread.

Dd finally cared about her Dec. 15th birthday this year - she turned 3. Up til then, we didn't really have to worry about celebrating it properly.

We had a little party at her preschool a little before her birthday. The kids seemed to like it because it did add to the festive time of the year.

And then we had a special time on her actual birthday that was just the 3 of us.

Some family remembered, and some didn't. I don't think she noticed, and I don't really care. They either have it in them to give presents or a card.....or they don't.

One problem we had though was that she didn't understand why the presents under the tree weren't for her to open as well. :-)

I like the birthday tree idea and might steal it for next year since she wanted to put her birthday presents under the tree and I think it was confusing.

with smiles

[vanessab23]

such great feedback, everyone. And I agree-- I love the birthday tree idea! Maybe that will be one of our traditions as well

[mamakarata]

okay i know you got all your answers, but i still have to share that my christmas eve baby (just turned 16) got "half birthdays" her whole life after her 1st birthday. so 6/24 was her 1/2 birthday with a candle and a 1/2 (always) and friends and family got used to it and that was the birthday bash celebration time, in June.

but always on xmas eve (her birthday) i'd get her one little special gift to open for her birthday because neither of us could ignore that fact, and it was just a special thing she and i shared.

this last birthday poised to be her first real bummer because turning 16, her friends are pretty important, so on 12/23 she had her best friends and boyfriend spend the night on the 12/23 to stay awake and ring in her 16th at midnight. so it was her first "whole" birthday with friends which was perfect for this particular birthday.

we are pretty happy how it worked out.

AND GET THIS - ds has an 11/27 birthday that every so many years lands on THANKSGIVING! so i have 2 holiday babies!

what can i say? that's just how i roll!