Bah Humbug – Part 17

Day 17 – Birthdays

Now those that profess to knowing me in a personal capacity will know that today is my birthday. Now what has this got to do with Christmas you may ask, well don’t ask me….ask the many other people that suffer the unfortunate circumstance of being born in December or during the Christmas period.

It’s not like we were in the womb and decided “I know, if I come out at Christmas I’ll get twice as much presents!”. No. Far from it. In fact, it’s more of a pain in the arse than you might think. Now, I’ve already pontificated about this situation in the past on Livejournal so if you want to read that you’ll just have to look in the archives. But the key issue remains the same.

A case in point is…this week I have received more cards through the post than in the entire month of December. In fact, the cards I have got this month all arrived this week. Now, some forward thinkers know about this problem for me and mark their envelopes with either CHRISTMAS or BIRTHDAY so that I can differentiate between cards. Others, not so forward thinking.

In fact there are those who try to save themselves the cost of a stamp by shoving the christmas card in with the birthday card.

Now forgive me if this is not how you do birthdays….but what I understood was that birthdays should be celebrated on the anniversary of the day of your birth…Is that right? So like if I was to send you a card for your birthday 2 weeks before your birthday, would you not find it a bit odd? Or a bit strange to have a birthday card already on display days ahead of your birthday?

Surely the enjoyment of birthdays comes from opening cards from people who remember you…

Of course it is not just about cards. The presents count too. Ask any person born around this time and they’ll tell you the same thing, they get told “Oh I’d have bought you a birthday present but it’s Christmas soon and so you’ll just have to have a bigger present then”. Thing is, come Christmas you don’t get anything more than other people.

I know it’s worse for people born ON Christmas day…I mean just think how the poor suspiciously Caucasian infant Christ felt. Every year he’d get told “Here have some presents” and then told “It’s christmas so I’ve had to double up” or “You can have a birthday or a christmas present but not a birthday present”. He must have felt absolutely left out…no wonder he went round upsetting Pharisees and Romans….a life time of shit birthdays is enough to piss anyone off.

So think about how Christmas is crap for people born around this time of year. Give them something extra special…Remember those born on the actual day…and instead of celebrating Christmas…Celebrate their birthday instead. Just imagine what your own birthday would be like if everyone got presents and you had a big celebratory meal. Of course the pubs tend to be closed but you can’t have everything now can you….