Happy Birthday
After the last post, it might be nice to enjoy something a bit lighter and more upbeat:
Birthdays are a big deal in some cultures. Particularly here in America, we take the anniversary of our first day as a cause to celebrate. It's the one day when you are special for no other reason than for being you and surviving another year. For many, being the birthday boy or girl meant you ruled the day. People gave you things, sang your name, made merry in your honour, and told you that all your wishes should come true. American parents often go to great lengths to plan the perfect birthday parties for their children.
In my family, birthdays were comparatively low key. When your family is large and doesn't have much money, the idea of hosting a half dozen school friends for a traditional birthday party isn't very practical, and going out to a professional venue of some sort is certainly impossible. So, we didn't have the kind of formal celebrations where crowds of children gather for party games and cake and watch you open gifts, or break a piñata. We would still celebrate five times a year, once for each of the kids, and occasionally for the parents as well. Mom would bake a cake, decorated cheerily and bearing the proper number of hand-me-down candles. We would sing "Happy Birthday" and make our wishes. There would be one modest gift, but the highlight of the day was less of a thing and more of a privilege. When I was growing up, on your birthday, you could choose what Mom made for dinner. 364 days a year, you had to eat whatever was put in front of you - which usually wasn't bad, but would invariably include a couple of meals of things like liver or smelt (the most appropriately named fish ever.) But on your one day, you could ask for the thing you liked the best, and (generally) everyone would be happy. For me, I remember it was often meatballs and gravy with egg noodles, always served with some green vegetable for contrast, depending on what cans we had in the cabinet.
Now that I'm older, I realize it was probably as nice for Mom to have someone else decide what to make as it was for us to choose it. At least she was reasonably sure she'd get no complaints. Still, this one simple thing made the day special and firmly cemented the ideas of family dinners and birthdays together in my head.
Our children have had more of the standard sort of American birthday parties, though nothing wildly extravagant. Still, as they grew older, gatherings have settled into a simple dinner with board or card games afterward. It's comfortable and familiar. The same core group of us- two sets of parents and our shared, mostly adult, children- get together at almost all the holidays and special occasions to celebrate in much the same way. The only difference is the birthday cake. All of this takes me back to childhood, when a birthday meant looking forward to gatehring around the dinner table for a pleasant meal, a real celebration of being part of the family.
So, this year, as the people I love gathered for comfort food I had cooked, and as they sang "Happy Birthday" over cake, my one birthday wish was to have more of the same next year.
Birthdays are a big deal in some cultures. Particularly here in America, we take the anniversary of our first day as a cause to celebrate. It's the one day when you are special for no other reason than for being you and surviving another year. For many, being the birthday boy or girl meant you ruled the day. People gave you things, sang your name, made merry in your honour, and told you that all your wishes should come true. American parents often go to great lengths to plan the perfect birthday parties for their children.
In my family, birthdays were comparatively low key. When your family is large and doesn't have much money, the idea of hosting a half dozen school friends for a traditional birthday party isn't very practical, and going out to a professional venue of some sort is certainly impossible. So, we didn't have the kind of formal celebrations where crowds of children gather for party games and cake and watch you open gifts, or break a piñata. We would still celebrate five times a year, once for each of the kids, and occasionally for the parents as well. Mom would bake a cake, decorated cheerily and bearing the proper number of hand-me-down candles. We would sing "Happy Birthday" and make our wishes. There would be one modest gift, but the highlight of the day was less of a thing and more of a privilege. When I was growing up, on your birthday, you could choose what Mom made for dinner. 364 days a year, you had to eat whatever was put in front of you - which usually wasn't bad, but would invariably include a couple of meals of things like liver or smelt (the most appropriately named fish ever.) But on your one day, you could ask for the thing you liked the best, and (generally) everyone would be happy. For me, I remember it was often meatballs and gravy with egg noodles, always served with some green vegetable for contrast, depending on what cans we had in the cabinet.
Now that I'm older, I realize it was probably as nice for Mom to have someone else decide what to make as it was for us to choose it. At least she was reasonably sure she'd get no complaints. Still, this one simple thing made the day special and firmly cemented the ideas of family dinners and birthdays together in my head.
Our children have had more of the standard sort of American birthday parties, though nothing wildly extravagant. Still, as they grew older, gatherings have settled into a simple dinner with board or card games afterward. It's comfortable and familiar. The same core group of us- two sets of parents and our shared, mostly adult, children- get together at almost all the holidays and special occasions to celebrate in much the same way. The only difference is the birthday cake. All of this takes me back to childhood, when a birthday meant looking forward to gatehring around the dinner table for a pleasant meal, a real celebration of being part of the family.
So, this year, as the people I love gathered for comfort food I had cooked, and as they sang "Happy Birthday" over cake, my one birthday wish was to have more of the same next year.
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