Today is my birthday. Yes, I know— EXCITING. Except that it is not that exciting at all. My birthday has always taken a backseat to Thanksgiving. I know some people always want to have the day off on their birthday but as someone who has spent every birthday either in transit or at home with their rather small family, I would prefer to at least have an option that involves being around a boatload of people acknowledging the one day of the year that should be ALL MINE.
Also? Did you know that 95% of the population was born in the last two weeks of November? It's true. We are all products of the shitastic Hallmark holiday where couples get together over one really long piece of spaghetti to laugh at the sadness of single people called Valentine's Day.
Do you know what happens when your mom sends you to school with birthday cupcakes for your class on the week after Thanksgiving? About ten other moms have done the same thing. And when your office manager presents you with a muffin because she just realized your birthday was two weeks ago? It is actually for about twenty other people as well. And then when everyone sings happy birthday and it gets to the part where you have to sing the birthday person's name? Everyone says something different or mumbles something incoherent and then they all give a small good-natured chuckle except you know what? IT'S NOT FUNNY.
ALSO- amongst my closest friends, three out of the four of us have their birthday in the second half of November. So your friends taking you out for a nice birthday dinner becomes just a regular dinner where you all pay for yourselves.
And now, to make matters worse— Mazzy's birthday is two weeks after mine. So my birthday has officially become irrelevant. But Mazzy's party? It's going to be FANFUCKINGTASTIC.
Although, she'll have to spend her whole life battling holiday parties and people still stuffed from Thanksgiving and wanting to kill the girl that insists on bringing latkes to her party every year and trying to brag about her birthday gifts when nobody cares because they are all getting ponies for Christmas.
Sorry, kid. We'll make half birthdays a thing.
Anybody else have a crappy brithday? Like my friend who was born on January 2nd— a day when you can't even pay an alcoholic to get a drink with you?
Do tell.
Happy Birthday!!! This post made me laugh out loud. My birthday is March 30, but everyone wishes me a happy birthday on the 31st. That’s all I’ve got. Pales in comparison to the injustices you’ve been suffering. LOVE!
That’s humorous since most of the people I know are born in the first 4 months of the year. We have joint birthday parties and cakes since they are all so close.
But I can definitely understand how November and December birthdays would suck. FWIW, Happy Birthday! 😀
Happy Birthday Ilana!! Enjoy your not so special day;) My birthday is Dec. 20th. I feel your pain…
I know how you feel. My birthday is September 17th so instead of getting one birthday present and one citizenship day present, I usually just get one big present for both holidays. Sucks.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday! Have a huge drink on me (where is your PayPal button so I can buy you one?)
You and Mazzy are gonna make half-birthdays the coolest thing!
Well, 1. Happy belated birthday.
2. As someone who had both their in-laws and their father’s birthday all landing between November 28th and December 4th, I feel the pain.
3. Go have a huge friggin’ rockin’ cocktail.
You are way deserving.
My birthday falls on or around Memorial Day, which is great because I get the day off but also sucks because, well, it’s Memorial Day, which is sad. Also, my grandma’s birthday is 4 days before mine and my mom’s is 6 days after mine, so we usually just celebrate them all together. So one cake for all 3 birthdays – not cool! Additional tidbit: we are all Geminis!!
Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Happy birthday!
My son’s birthday is 10 days before Christmas, many people have left town or are too busy to celebrate, so we celebrate his half birthday which is the same as his grandpa’s birthday 🙂
My mom’s birthday is 2 days before Christmas and my birthday falls on Mother’s day ever so often…which is absolutely fantastic.
Happy birthday Ilana! I always hated my mid-summer birthday. No classroom party, everyone was away at sleepaway camp, and all my parents were allowed to send me at camp was a bouquet of flowers.
First of all Happy Birthday to you Ilana. Look at it this way, if people keep forgetting your birthday then that means you’re not really getting older so you could stay in your 20’s forever.
My birthday usually falls on Labour Day weekend in September (Canada) so people are all about drinking way too much on my birthday which is all good.
If you have yet to see my bday greetings on FB, or email, and shortly after this message, on twitter, wait, you will. So once again HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! As to your question….
September friggin’ Ninth baby. Day before or first day of school my whole damn life. it SUCked big time. Whenever we had to fill out the info cards on that day I would always try to put mine on the top in hopes my teacher would notice it was indeed my bday. Sadly, it never worked. It’s also btw frequently right smack dab in between Roshhashanah and Yom Kippur, so there’s excessive relatives and Judaism to consider, grrrr. Like I said, SUCKS for so many reasons I don’t even have enough room here to elaborate. So I feel for you my chum, I truly do. Be that as it may, you go show the world you are not afraid to blow your own horn, ring your own bell, eat your own cake… xoxoxo
The internet will shower you with birthday wishes! Happy Birthday!
I’m a late summer birthday, which sounds great and all but, invariably, my birthday was the first day (or week) of school. There are no birthday celebrations the first week of school.
My first day of college (out of state, where I knew NO ONE) was my 18th birthday. Yeah, that blew.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! IT’S YOUR SPECIAL DAY!
My mom’s birthday is December 26th, so she gets out-shadowed by Jesus every year. Jesus Christ!
Happy Birthday!
My birthday falls two weeks after Christmas so at least I get the sales. Our daughter was actually DUE Christmas day… but I had a talk with her and she decided to see us 6 days early. And it’s not as bad as it sounds—we use her birthday to kick off Christmas Week at our house, which she loves. : )
Happy Birthday, I knew I’d love today’s toast post! My birthday is January 3rd, which is always the day everyone moans and groans their way back to school or work. And I always get gypped by the christmas/birthday gift combo (I often wondered, if it wasn’t my birthday, would you really have given me the top but not the bottom??) And no one ever wants to go out to celebrate, they are always too tired, too poor, too partied out. No classroom parties, lots of cancelled bday parties due to noreasters…you get the idea. It sucks. Except for the year I turned 3 my Dad had the brilliant half birthday idea and we celebrated in the summertime with a huge outdoor screening of Bambi. Now that was a perfect birthday! Good luck Mazzy, and Happy Birthday Ilana, we’re toasting you tonight!
Happy birthday! Perhaps we should plan a party for, say, May 24?
In other news, everyone knows that any calories or fat ingested during the birthday week don’t count or are, you know, invisible. So you are actually the luckiest person alive, considering this week. GO, YOU.
Happy Birthday. Funny though…I know 2 other people with a bday today and 1 tomorrow.
I’m lucky to have a lovely mid-June birthday. My daughter however, has a bday the last week of August when half the world is trying to squeeze in an end of summer getaway. Then the following weekend is Labor day when the other half of the world goes away. And don’t even get me started on the unpredictable weather…it has rained on the day of her party every single year. Every.Year.
Not sure if my bday disappeared when I married a man who’s bday is 3 days before me or when I had a child whose bday is 4 days after mine. Seriously. Happy bday Alana (today and in 2 weeks!)
Wish U a Many more happy returns of the day !!!I think he is enjoying his day,I can say you are actually the luckiest person in the world …https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&send_id=817789614&email=7cff47bb7cdcb76fbfa15e66c81a1961 U are a cutiest Baby!!!
Well happy birthday…and wouldn’t you know it, my daughter has her birthday on November 25th, so that is definitely in keeping with the last-two-weeks-of-November theory.
Go ahead, eat a cupcake…another one 🙂
That camp sounds like it sucked.
Forget my twenties— it’s like I was never born!
First day of school does suck, my friend. At least it must have gotten better as you got older? Thank you for the multiple birthday wishes across multiple platforms! As we say in advertising— it was a 360 birthday campaign:)
That does sound like it sucks. I wish you and Heidi (see comment above) had known each other as kids to commiserate.
Also, it is impossible not to love facebook on your birthday.
That sounds nice. My due date was day after my sister’s wedding but thankfully, Mazzy came two weeks early.
Thank you Diane! I will hereby make January 3rd Diane Day at our house. You let me know how you would like us to celebrate:)
It’s been four days since my birthday and I fear the calories have not yet disappeared. Wait— let me check. Nope. It is very clear that they are sticking around…
Oh that does suck. And I’m sure if you try to plan her birthday a couple weeks earlier or later, there are are other kids with actual birthdays on those dates that hog all the attention. So sad.
Oy. You should tell your husband he must send you to a spa every year for the three days in between as your gift.
Please tell her happy birthday from me:)
That Jesus. Always hogging the limelight.
Mother’s Day and birthday combo is probably the worst thing I have ever heard.
What I am learning from this post: there are a lot of holidays that can mess up a birthday!
I had two huge friggin’ cocktails. One for my birthday and one for the stupid day the pilgrims learned how to eat corn.
You mean all I need is a pay pal button and then the money starts rolling in?? Why am I first hearing of this now?
That reminds me— you forgot to get me a Fag Day present this year!
I have a theory that people tend to hang out with people born in the same parts of the year as themselves. This theory is based on absolutely nothing. Well, except that every one of my chosen friends is born in October or November.
Yeah, you got nothing. Thank you though!
Happy much-belated birthday! I’m new around here, so that’s my excuse. My birthday is 12/6, which is a huge reason why I tried for and successfully got my son’s birthday in June.
However, my father’s birthday is (I think) the worst of them all – 12/31 – New Year’s Eve. Yes, there are some perks from the past – never had school on his birthday, his twenties probably rocked as long as he didn’t care if the night was about him or not. But with 2 younger siblings, you know his teen years were spent babysitting so his parents could go out. As a parent himself, his kids (including me) were always up way, way past bedtime on “his” day, and now that his kids are all grown it is a bitch to get us to really do much of anything for him. Which sucks, and I feel bad, but until recently I had crazy parties to go to. Now I have a 6 month old baby and a date with a mattress as soon as his little head hits his pillow.
So yeah, while all late-November/December birthdays suck, I think my dad has it the worst.
And is that stat about the last 2 weeks of November really true?
Yeah, New Year’s Eve must suck pretty hard. But now that you have a baby, you can invite your parents over for dinner on New year’s. What else are you gonna do?
As far as the November stat— it might not be a fact exactly, but it’s close. I can name at least twenty friends of mine (and not random aquaintances, real friends) that have birthdays in the last two weeks of November. Five of them on the exact same day as mine.
Happy Belated Birthday -two years later! So funny! I am finding this post in 2012 because MY birthday dissappeared this year! My birthday is November 24 too! I’ve always loved Thanksgiving because everyone came to our house and HAD to acknowledge my birthday. My husband (whose birthday is 12/12/66 -YIKES! this year 12/12/12!!)and I always host Thanksgiving but this year we did it with a 4 week old new born added to the brood of a 3 and 5 year old (all boys). I just had to comment, even at this late date. Between the stress of Thanksgiving and a constantly nursing chunker, I couldn’t do anything for my birthday. My family usually has a cake for me and everyone sings but this year for some reason it never happened. I was kind of bummed but glad to find your article! I love your writing and recently found you after researching making a quilt form my boys’ onsies since this new one is growing out of everything so fast (he’s 6 weeks old and onto the 3-6 month bin) He was 9lbs when born. Being our last I can thin out the clothing but some sentimental pieces are hard to donate (or toss!) I love your article on your quilt and have passed it on to several friends who plan on doing the same thing! Thank you! Looking forard to cathching up with your old posts and reading the new. Happy Holidays!
OK, so I know this thread is ridiculously old to still be commenting on but Mazzy’s birthday sounds like it’s very close to mine December 8th. It’s smack between Thanksgiving & Christmas so I almost never got to have a party b/c everyone was already busy with plans for either (or both) holidays. Just like everyone was also broke from both holidays so I got lucky if I got a birthmus gift and it usually sucked IF they remembered. You might think a person would outgrow all that but then I got to College and now end up with finals for my birthday on top of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and being broke. 🙁
Another person commenting years later:
While I was little my birthday(9/12) wasnt so bad because i got to celebrate with cousin who shares my bday but since 2001 it kinda hasnt been the greatest though I will never complain because my two best friends have awful birthday(12/27 and 1/2). Sissy* gets lumped in with X-mas and Chica* well you already said why her bday sucks.
*nicknames used to be respectful of my friends privacy