Celebrating Birthdays and Holidays ~ Today's Fireside Chat

A while back I found that I wasn't satisfied with having just one special day, whether it was a birthday or holiday it made little difference. I felt that I wasn't done celebrating. I spoke to my wife and kids and they felt the same, especially around Christmas. There is a huge build up with lots of ads, music, billboards, sales and so on around the Christmas season and then the day happens and everyone is too tired or sick or whatever to truly enjoy it. They felt as though it should be at least a week long with all the hype.

We decided on a plan of action. Holidays and birthdays will now be celebrated the whole month long. Doesn't mean we are giving presents every day, but we try to find something extra special to do each day for a month. Say your birthday is on the tenth, we start on the first and go thru to the next month's tenth. Presents can happen at any time during that period, with the majority on the day itself. We may skip a few days for various reasons and pick up anew with some fun place to go, or some small gift, or simply spending family time around the kitchen table. It's something.

My wife's birthday is coming up and she has some things planned around her birthday, but nothing on her birthday yet. She may get a present on the first and as far out as her day the following month. We do this for my whole family. Nobody else does this, that I have spoken to, it's just us. It keeps the "Post-Holiday Blues" away. By the time we are done celebrating the person or holiday has been thoroughly celebrated and everyone is ready to move on. I remember once one of us got sick of celebrating and asked that we skip their month, maybe just celebrate the day itself. We all agreed. The point was to be open to celebrating when we felt the need and not when we didn't. No pressure.

Holidays and birthdays can be so filled with pressure that people stop enjoying them. It's like having too much pizza or too much cake. For me it was too much cake. I can't stand cake now. My dad got on a baking kick back in the late 1980's and early 1990's. He would bake a cake once or twice a week for the longest time. I finally told him to stop. "Just stop it! Okay? I'm so sick of cake now that I can't stand the sight of it." He was sad, but he understood and curtailed his cake baking. He didn't stop altogether, but there was noticeably less of it in the house after that. To this day I have a real hard time with cake. If given the option of cake or something else, I'll take something else. I digress though, the point was to remove the pressure from any celebrated day.

My older sister wasn't aware of this new change until last year. We had not spoken in ten years, but I pulled the family back together when my parents passed away, it was their last wish. When I was speaking with my older sister last October about celebrating the holidays she shied away from the subject. She had some bad experiences with celebrations in her past. I said "Well, here is what we do now. We take the pressure off the whole thing and celebrate when we feel like it, not when society tells us to. We could celebrate whatever holiday or birthday whenever we choose." She said how about the day before Thanksgiving"? I said " Sure, we can even hold off until next year or summer or whenever you wish, it's your choice." She was just absolutely floored by the new concept. "What if we plan to do it and at the last moment I just don't feel like coming over?" I said, "That, my dear, is not a problem either. We will schedule it in pencil and if you choose to put it off you can. We are amazing at last minute plans for fun. You choose where and what you want to celebrate and who you want to have come." Total silence..... then, "That's wonderful! I love it! How did you come up with that?" So I regaled her the story of how we came up with this new plan.

Since traditions are falling by the wayside anyway, there's no need to follow what society is doing or not doing. We do things our way and everyone else does them their way and nobody has any issues with it. I remember we used to celebrate my children's birthdays in July because they were off for the summer break, and when their real birthdays happen is when everyone is doing something else. They never had friends available for their birthdays, so we decided we would celebrate their birthdays publicly in July and privately on the day itself. Of course later on we found out that they hated that, and so we changed it. We don't celebrate their birthdays in July anymore, just in their birth month. Whatever works, right?

The concept stuck though. We realized that we could celebrate as much or as little as we chose. Once we didn't celebrate anything for a year because we were all partied out. Instead we put it off until we were ready. Of course this doesn't work for Halloween. Lol, trick-or-treating in June isn't quite the same. However, we did let our kids wear their costumes all year long. Whenever they wanted to wear their costumes we would let them. Why spend money on a costume for a child and have them wear it just the once? The following year they have outgrown it. For instance, I bought my youngest son a Spider-Man costume and he wore it until he couldn't fit in it anymore. He loved the character and playing dress up. The next year, when he was too big for it I got him a new one. His old one was completely worn out anyway and the new one had wings! I would be asked regularly by other parents why I allowed my child to walk around in public in his costume when it wasn't Halloween. I would tell them my concept. Let them be kids for as long as they can, because adulting sucks. The costumes didn't used to be worn all year round, but now they are. We would buy a new costume and use it once, like a wedding dress, and it would sit in storage. I figured that was pretty darn silly not to use it for as long as my kids wanted. He would go to school in his costume...well, until the school got tired of hearing complaints from other families whose kids also wanted to wear their costumes to school everyday. Almost started a new trend..

So, take the stress out of the holidays and birthdays. Celebrate when you feel like it, or not, it's entirely your decision. Just because tradition says to do something, or not to, doesn't mean you have to. Be free, have fun, enjoy life a little more.
As always....
Much love, light and warmth,
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