Growing up, birthdays were always celebrated, but only on odd-numbered birthdays did we have friend parties. The rest, we had family only celebrations - usually dinner and cake and ice cream and singing, and presents of course. Certain birthdays also meant certain life milestones. Here's how I remember my birthdays.
1 - I don't remember this one, but there's some cute photo and video evidence of me in a paper princess hat eating cake.
2 - What do you expect me to remember? I was 2, and my parents had another newborn. Not as many photos and made up memories.
3 - My first memories are of my 3rd birthday - we had some friends over and a circus theme. We made playdoh animals and put them under strawberry basket cages. We had a circus parade. My aunt painted our faces. I received a mini-trampoline, a hamster I named Caramel, and a blue fuzzy elephant puppet. Likely, many of my memories have been supplemented/created by photos.
4 - No specific memories.
5 - Same.
6 - I got my first bike! Well, my family knew by then that we were moving to Texas in a few weeks, so I got a coupon for a bike! The bike we bought after the move.
7 - Would have been a friend party, but I don't remember it.
8 - I got baptized! My grandparents gave me my first set of scriptures.
9 - Pool party!
10 - Nothing specific.
11 - Another friend party year.
12 - I got to start Young Womens! That's the female youth (12-18) program at church.
13 - I got to start wearing makeup! So, my birthday party was a Mary Kay party. Immediately after, I went with my friend Leslie to her house and jumped into the pool. Didn't remember that I was wearing makeup until after that first jump.
14 - It was either this birthday or the previous Christmas I was promised a bedroom door, instead of just the open walkway/laundry between my room and my sister's. This never happened, because we moved to Utah in August. My bedroom there had two doors! One to the basement, and the other to my actual room. I actually had a door in the room in the Texas house, but it was to the front of the house. I think the section of the house our bedrooms were in was actually a converted garage and they ran a daycare out of it, so the front door in my bedroom was, for the previous owners,the daycare door. You had to go through Sisterpants' room to get to the backyard, and I had to go through her room to get to the rest of the house. This doesn't have anything to do with birthdays anymore . . .
15 - Second co-ed birthday party! My 3rd birthday was co-ed too, but the rest were not, as I recall. I remember playing games and hanging out in the front yard and a little drama happening when my ex-not-my-boyfriend showed up with some mutual friends.
16 - I went on my first date that night! We went to the school dance - I asked him. It wasn't an official date dance and he went to another school, but it was still officially my first date. I didn't get my driver's license until August, since I had to take driver's ed in the summer and then learn how to drive a manual first.
17 - I went to see Pearl Harbor with a couple of friends.
18 - For as big a birthday as 18 is, this one was kept pretty low-key. I think my soon-to-be-boyfriend (we made official in August) was involved in the family celebration though.
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| 22! My last birthday in Utah! |
How did your family celebrate birthdays?
3 comments:
I know I had friends over for my 3rd birthday because we have pictures of it. But I never really had friend parties.
When I turned 16 I invited two friends to join us spelunking at Carlsbad Caverns and I invited all the kids I babysat over for a party where we played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, blew bubbles, and made sock puppets.
Despite the lack of large parties, birthdays were always huge deals in my house. I'm planning on doing the same our house going forward.
Birthdays are definitely huge deals, party or no!
All I know is I want a huge party for my next birthday (40!!) but I'm not sure how to pull it off. I love my birthday, and I love cake and presents. :)
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