Happy Half Birthday To You!

I'm a sucker for birthdays. Mine. Yours. Doesn't matter: I love to celebrate birthdays!

My own birthday, in early June, comes at both a good and bad time of the year. On one hand, it is half a year away from that other major-gift-receiving holiday, Christmas. On the other hand, during my school years, my birthday almost always fell during the last week of school. Not a good time for an in-school birthday party. I always felt like I got the short end of the sick on that one.

And so, I feel particularly guilty about my son's birthday which falls just a few days before Christmas. So far, we've had nice, family birthday parties for him and I don't think he's noticed or minded the proximity to Christmas.

But, then again, he's only had two birthdays!!

I fully anticipate problems to come in the years ahead. Complaints of us taking one of his Christmas presents and simply giving it early as a birthday present...having to hold a very early party to get anyone to attend...oh, the challenges of a birthday close to a major holiday!

I think I have a solution -- a half birthday celebration!

Why not? Who doesn't want another excuse to eat a slice of birthday cake? Another excuse to celebrate?

So this year I made--from scratch!--a half birthday cake (one layer of a round cake cut in half, stacked then iced) and we sang "Happy Half Birthday To You" to Lucas. He received two wonderful books as gifts (I don't know that we'll do half-birthday gifts every year, but I was at a terrific local bookstore and couldn't help picking up a few beautiful books for him). It was low-key but fun.

In future years, I think this summertime half-birthday might just be the perfect opportunity for a kids' party, conveniently allowing the poorly-timed actual birthday to be a family-only celebration.

And surely if we are celebrating Lucas's half-birthday then we'll need to celebrate mine, too, right? Oh, and my husband's!

Bring on the cake!

Original post to DC Metro Moms. When Aimee isn't busy coming up with excuses to eat cake, she can be found blogging at Smiling Mama.
Comments

Meg said...
I hear ya about the summer birthday - I'm a July baby, and if my elementary teachers bothered to acknowledge ours at all, they were crammed into a mass celebration the last week of school. We had to SHARE our birthdays. And then, when you ran into kids at the pool in the summer, they'd never remember.

Of course now that I have hit the big four decade mark, I find it rather convenient to let it sneak by others.

Come to think of it - my youngest son's half-birthday is this Saturday. Maybe I'll make a cake!

Nicole said...
Hi Separated-at-birth...
(I'm kidding) BUT my son was born a week before christmas (18th) and My birthday is June 6th.

We actually celebrated his half-birthday this year for the first time and it was relaxed and fun...

Don't know what day your son was born on but what we started doing last Dec when he turned 4 and started to really care ...was we did his bday party on the 18th (nothing but Birthday decorations in the house)
and then my husband stayed home from work the next morning and we all went out and bought a tree and decorated for Christmas! It worked out well. My husband commented to me that evening after our son had gone to sleep,
"Well, this is our plan for the next 18 years or so."

Happy 1/2 birthday to your son and happy belated birthday to you!

Robin said...
When I was in the classroom teaching, I'd celebrate the students with summer birthdays during the winter - at their 'half birthday'. Teaching special ed, it was very important to me that they also participate in the bringing in of the cupcakes. Often they had social skills deficits, and this was a great to work on them and make them feel extra special and not miss out on what the Sept-June bday kids experienced.


Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!