An Existential Celebration 2/27/2022

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Birthdays are weird. Yes, we are to that time of year again.  It’s almost time for my birthday but I am not going to ramble about my own aging like I did last year I promise.  I chalk that inward focus up to it being a bit of a significant year in my life and I may have been in something of a mild mid-life crisis.  I hope to avoid any more of those types of scenarios if possible. Instead, this year, the impending day had me thinking about the nature of birthdays in and of themselves.  The more I mulled the more I realized that the way that we celebrate birthdays is a tad on the strange side.  Today instead of bemoaning my own advancing years, I am pondering any and every birthday so really this applies to anyone with any experience with a birthday be it their own or someone else’s and, if I am not badly mistaken, that should run the gamut.

I guess my first question is about gifts.  May I just apply this disclaimer that I most assuredly do not have any qualms with anyone getting me any gifts. I could easily produce an online wish list for anyone that felt so inclined, no pressure of course.  But I suppose my opposition isn’t to gifts in general but why is it, pray tell, that we give gifts to the person that was born? It seems to me, that is the person who had the least to do with the matter and probably should be the last to be rewarded for something that with which they had nothing to do.  Perhaps I am biased as having had a child, but it seems to me that the most appropriate receiver of gifts on someone’s birthday should be their mother.  Yes, perhaps we can give the father a bit of a trinket since he is an important contributing factor, but I really think the mother deserves a gift on the birthday.  I mean considering what she is commemorating upon the day she probably deserves a rather substantial gift.  Perhaps she needs jewelry, cash or a small vacation.  I know that this would completely change the birthday tradition and how we’ve always done things.  I love tradition and much as the next person, possibly more and am usually not one for going against its grain but it just seems we may have gotten this part of a very common celebration terribly wrong.  I do understand that there will be people that disagree with me, likely children and I get that.  Perhaps at least your mom should get a card or something though?

One thing I feel we got spectacularly correct on birthdays is the tradition of cake.  Then again, I will forever and always say yes to cake.  I will even include the time I had a horrific run in with a Lane Cake (it’s an Alabama staple apparently) that I thought had chocolate only to learn it was ground up raisins. Yes, I know, I shudder at the thought myself.  Even after that nightmare of an experience which leaves scars to this day, saying yest to cake is a risk fully worth taking.  You see, I apparently am a blue whale in appetite in that I could eat tons of food each day if the laws of science and stomach elasticity would allow.  And sweets, oh beautiful sweets, are the pinnacle of joy when it comes to food for me.  So, any excuse that arises to encourage the consumption of beloved pastry I embrace wholeheartedly.

In doing a bit of research, it turns out that the idea of a cake with lit candles was started by the ancient Greeks who use to make a round cake with candles on it in honor of the goddess Artemis. The lit candles on the round cake were meant to look like the moon in honor of her.  Eventually this led to candles on cakes to celebrate anyone in general and clearly stuck like most good excuses to eat sweets do.  Apparently at one point in Germany the tradition was to light all the candles on the morning of a child’s birthday and keep them burning all day until after dinner was eaten and it was time for cake.  I suppose this is all good for symbolism which I love, however I place far more emphasis on being able to eat my cake without large amounts of melted wax hindering it’s flavor so I am content with the lighting and almost immediate blowing out of candles.

I suppose I have rambled excessively about birthdays without saying very much.  I tend to do that. I suppose I am just confused as to why we celebrate a person for something they had absolutely nothing to do with.  Then again, maybe there are worse vices that a society could have rather than trying to find reasons to celebrate those they love.  Really, I suppose it comes down to we are celebrating the simple fact that we are happy that someone exists, and we are marking the day that it came to be.  In thinking about it more as a celebration of having someone in your life it could be a rather normal thing.  Perhaps birthdays aren’t so weird after all.