Happy birthday [wcip]Angel

[--Pete]

Hi,

And many happy returns.

--Pete

[[wcip]Angel]

Thank you very much, Pete!:)

The celebration of my big "score and four" have been seemingly eventless so far.

Christmas, 24th or 25th?
I never remember this, but I know that some countries celebrate Christmas on the 24th and some celebrate the 25th. Something is called "Christmas Eve"/"Christmas Day" while others refer to it as "Boxing Day". Tyson being unrelated to any of these events, AFAIK. In Norway, we celebrate Christmas Eve ("Julaften", "aften"=evening) on the 24th of December, my birthday. Although traditions vary, here are some commonplace happenings on this anual occasion:

* Big, traditional breakfast with all sorts of Christmas'y ham/herring/scrambled eggs; all the fixins!

* Some people go to church, either for reasons of religion and/or tradition. I play in a Brassband, and although I don't play on Christmas Eve myself (I'm a percussionist, and we don't have a lot to do when playing Christmas music), I always attend the band's church concert. I like listening to my friends when they play.:)

* We usually gather around in groups of extended families (immediate family + a couple of aunts and uncles, give or take a grandma). We have a rather elaborate holiday feast consisting of either a turkey, stick meat or ribs (not spare ribs... hmm, describing Norwegian cooking in English is difficult without knowing the English language equivalent. Edit: added link for clarification.) Digesting this heavy meal is virtually impossible without large quantities of aquavit

* When the courses of the meal have been properly digested, we move over to the lounge area of the living room where, atop a pile of gifts, sits a mighty christmas tree. We hand out the pressies (takes between 3-4 hours depending on the size of the gathering.)

* Coffee and cake (+ fruit)

* Meats, scrambled eggs and bread-things. (light food... compared to the heavy meal we just had anyway.)

* After we're all sick of each other, we load up the car (with 1 designated driver pr car) with more gifts than when we came, and go home.

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I don't know how Christmas is celebrated in the US and UK (or other parts of the world), but in Norway, the presents and the meal are the main events of the evening. When I was younger, we had the arrangement that I would get my birthday presents in the morning and the Christmas presents in the evening with everyone else. As I grew older, I noticed that the pile of birthday presents became increasingly smaller. This year, I got 2 birthday presents: shoes from my parents and money from my grandmother. ($50)

As you can imagine, having been born on Christmas Eve, I've had to answer the same question (or a variation of it) a million times throughout the years: "So what's it like having your birthday on Christmas Eve" Doesn't it suck?" People asking me this question obviously don't consider the fact that I have no reference point; nothing with which to compare it. It's not like I can compare it to back in the days when I had my birthday on the 12th of June... :rolleyes:But when I was younger, I didn't understand why it'd be a problem having Christmas and my birthday at the same time, because I always got presents for both.

However, now that I'm supposed to be this thing they call "an adult", most of my extended family don't give me anything. So now I'm starting to see the drawbacks of having to celebrate on Christmas.

But it's not like I can do anything about it. I'll just have to buy my own damn pressies! :shuriken:

edit: please excuse my unseemly use of elipses, poor grammar and sentence structure just this once. I'm in a state of disarray at the moment. Family functions take their toll...

[Rhydderch Hael]

Count your blessings that you only have to deal with Christmas Eve.

According to some old folklore, those born on Christmas Day itself, December 25th, are cursed— ranging from a simple regard of blasphemy, to outright vampirism (of all things!). Something to do with the mother's audacity to do the 'thang on the anniversary of the Immaculate Conception.

[kandrathe]

Count your blessings that you only have to deal with Christmas Eve.

According to some old folklore, those born on Christmas Day itself, December 25th, are cursed— ranging from a simple regard of blasphemy, to outright vampirism (of all things!). Something to do with the mother's audacity to do the 'thang on the anniversary of the Immaculate Conception.

... or in April. Human females have a 9 month gestation period. According to my unabridged Disney guide to sex, Twitterpation is a spring ritual.

[Maitre]

... or in April. Human females have a 9 month gestation period. According to my unabridged Disney guide to sex, Twitterpation is a spring ritual.

Actually, depending on the source, gestation is closer to 40 weeks than 9 months (caution: math follows):
40w * 7d/w= 280 days, while
9m * 365.25d/12m = 273.9 days

YGMV... mine was about 35 weeks, my son's was about 39 (and he was considered slightly early according to the OB/GYN).

While I can't say I'm in the same situation as [wcip]Angel, my birthday is the 15th of December, which coincided with the first night of Hanukkah this year, and that happens to be the holiday of choice in our house so I do have some frame of reference. I have also noticed that the birthday (and holiday) presents decrease as I get closer to the middle of the 20-40 demographic (though this last Hanukkah was complicated by having an 8 month old who monopolized the present market from both his grandmothers, and his mother (I swear, the kid out-received me 6:1, and all he can do is crawl over to something and shove it in his mouth. It's like I no longer exist).

The birthday thing doesn't really bother me though, I've never sought to draw attention to myself, and I never saw why my birthday should be any different. I got a birthday card this year that I really appreciated. The front depicted the Dali Llama opening a gift, and the caption read "Just what I always wanted: nothing!!" While I can't claim to be as enlightened as to have completely eliminated desire from my life, all I really want for my birthday is some quiet time to collect myself and get ready for the coming year.