Today I turn 32, full on adulthood yet I still act like a child about my birthday.  I have one very adult thing to say about this: birthdays too close to Christmas SUCK!! My birthday happens to be the first day of winter and the day of the year with the least amount of daylight.  I also share my birthday with Carl Marx, oh and one more joyous factoid, you all know that the world is supposed to end on my birthday next year right?  That’s just what I want to associate my birthday with, pending apocalypse.

People complain about how all-consuming Christmas is at this time of year, everyone trying to peddle their wares as a “GREAT GIFT IDEA” or “PERFECT STOCKING STUFFER!!”  Christmas kind of consumes the birthdays of the people around it.  I’ve always set the bar at 5 days before and 5 days after.  It’s easy to forget birthdays at any time, but last-minute Christmas shopping, holiday parties and finalizing plans for the holidays make it very difficult to remember anything this time of year.  I actually found a website dedicated to the plight of the Christmas or near Christmas baby.

I’m lucky, for most of my life my mom has been awesome about making sure I had a birthday.  Doing everything she could to make sure I had a party, presents were properly wrapped and the day of my birthday was about me.  I warned my husband about how insane I am about my birthday and he shows me each year how lucky I am by making my birthday a special day.

The following are my set of rules for those in your life with Christmas birthdays.  If you are a parent of a child with a Christmas birthday pay special attention.  I am yet to meet a person (adults included) with a birthday this time of year that didn’t share my feelings even if they weren’t so vocal about it.

1. Do not ever wrap birthday presents in Christmas paper.  This is just simply not o.k.  I don’t care how much of it you have lying around.

2. If you are buying a gift card, take the time to get one that doesn’t refer to the holidays.

3. If you are a parent give your child a birthday party.  It does not matter if they will be seeing aunts and uncles in a few days, that is for Christmas, this is their birthday.

4. Do something to make the actual day special and birthday centered.

5. Birthday cake.  It doesn’t matter how many cookies or other holiday treats are around.  BIRTHDAY CAKE!!

6.  Separate presents.  Don’t skimp on a Christmas birthday just because you are buying so much this time of year.  Buy less.

7. If you must combine a birthday with a holiday celebration let the birthday child have a least a small moment that is about them and open their birthday presents first, and somewhat separate from the Christmas gifts.

8. If you drag your spouse to a company  holiday party or your families holiday party on their birthday you should be prepared to make it up to them.  Birthday cake helps.

Fellow December birthday people, have I missed something, or is there something your loved ones do to make your crappy calendar date special?

Photos courtesy of: Maventy.org & someecards.com

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