Birthdays

Birthdays “I am a child of God, And he has sent me here, Has given me an earthly home With parents kind and dear.” -Hymn 301 

Brother D said of birthdays, “they come and go.” Birthdays at our house are often joked about. We kids often tease Mom and Dad about how much a birthday is just like any other day. This is true. Birthdays are always remembered at our house, and the Birthday Person will hear “Happy Birthday” a number of times throughout the day. But traditions that are normally associated with birthdays to the rest of the world don’t necessarily happen on the day itself, or even at all. We normally get a birthday cake. But it may be on our birthday, the day after, sometime that week, or maybe the next. Along with birthday cake always comes our choice of ice cream, and everyone in the family will sing “Happy Birthday” the extended version with all sorts of “And Scooby Doo on channel two, with Franken Stein on channel nine” and typically Rosalie and Brother N have a contest to see who can hold out the last note the longest! Birthday presents will normally come, but these may come any where from on our birthday to many months later. Rumor has it that Brother J has been saving up his birthday presents for years now, Mom and Dad remind him that he can’t get a car, no matter how long he saves up. 

Birthday Sunday Dinner is a favorite at our house. The week of your birthday you get to plan the entire menu for Sunday’s dinner. Everything you want, you get for dinner. This often varies, we have had home made pizza, lasagna, and even a full blown turkey dinner. I really think Mom likes this, because it isn’t so much making dinner that Mom gets sick of it is planning dinner, so if someone else plans dinner she is a happy mother. 

Mom and Dad also take us out for dinner for our birthday sometime during the month of our birthday. This is everyone’s favorite part about birthdays. When we were little the whole family went, often we went to Showbiz Pizza or Hometown Buffet. Now that we are older, we just go the three of us. Sometimes it is more of us, if we agree, like for instance, many times Brother J and I would go out at the same time, just because our birthdays were with in a week of each other. We get to chose what ever restaurant we want to go to. It is a great date with Mom and Dad, everyone enjoys the time alone with Mom and Dad to just sit and talk. Dad and Mom both enjoy the time that they get to spend with us, once again, another favorite of many people.