Author: Jenn Goddu

Jenn Goddu http://www.birthdayarebest.com I am a writer, editor, and writing coach who also blogs about birthdays!

A Birthday Wish To Build a Dream On.

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“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I have spent a great deal of my life collecting quotes in notebooks. Words speak to me. I can’t even effectively use Pinterest because so many of the things I want to “pin” have no images…only words that resonate with me.

The quote above from one of my favorite authors, which I came across on Curated Quotes, is an excellent perspective for the birthday deniers to consider.

I have never understood people who want to pretend their birthdays aren’t happening. I used to attribute my unbridled enthusiasm for birthdays to being the youngest among my friends. As I was always catching up, I had no desire to deny my aging. Yet now I’m in my 40s. I am no longer regularly the youngest. Nevertheless, I still love birthdays.

A birthday is a day to celebrate the best of you and begin afresh in pursuing your dreams. I may be sagging in places I didn’t use to sag – but that’s still no reason to bemoan a changing number. Bring on the birthdays, I say. I will be pursuing dreams right up until my very last birthday.

“Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.” —Jean Paul Richter

Frosty’s First Words & Us

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Image source: http://www.hattales.com/media/16279/frosty-the-hat-full.jpg

Rudolph, The Grinch, Charlie Brown and his hopeless Christmas tree, the Miser brothers (my FAVORITE), and Frosty are all making their reappearances this time of year. My son loves Frosty.

This year I heard Frosty’s “first words” in a new light because of this blog. When Frosty is first brought to life he pipes up with “Happy Birthday!” How wonderful! I love the idea of someone starting out living with these celebratory words. Imagine if we all started our days embracing the happiness and good feeling we have for others when we say those two magical words.

This reminded me of a picture a friend sent me with encouragement to treat everyone as if it’s their birthday. In looking for the image again, I found the words attributed to Kid President. His uplifting & funny video endorsing the idea is worth watching:

Give someone a pep talk. Share a corn dog. Say Happy Birthday!

Don’t judge by the wrapping

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Image source: http://www.notmartha.org/images/other/2010sept/scottbday_MScraftsorig.jpg

I pride myself on thoughtful gifts. I like to pay attention throughout the year and note things family and friends say they like or want. Then, when the time comes, I can surprise them with something they may have forgotten they wanted. Having heard an abbreviated summary of The 5 Love Languages, I feel secure in my self assessment as a giver.

However, facing the mound of presents I’ve been saving to give for Christmas, I’m reminded how much I dislike wrapping presents. Wrapping gifts neatly is something I don’t take the time to do. My BFF is an amazing gift wrapper who uses pretty papers, nice crisp edges, lovely bows and gift cards. (One reason she’s my BFF is that she forgives my horrible wrappings). My presents look bad enough that my almost-niece, my BFF’s daughter, commented on one of my paper-terrorized-by-tape debacles in that way that children have of pointing out the obvious.

I don’t remember exactly what she said, only that I was mortified.

Now, I could promise to take care with future present wrapping. Awareness is half the battle. But I’m not making promises I can’t keep. I will instead offer great ideas for wrapping presents that my more patient readers can enjoy (and I can envy).

Image source: http://blog.mygiftshop.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/images/Creative-Gift-Wrapping-Ideas.jpg


Real Simple is supposed to make life easier, but they’re just raising the bar. “Creative accents?” Who has time for those! OK, if you do, they have some great ideas in this slideshow.

On Pinterest people go to town gift wrapping. Here’s one collection of pins.

Buzzfeed has 23 cool tricks. Maybe my origami-obsessed son can handle making the paper bows.

In the meantime, happy giving. Let me know below in the comments if you have other cool gift wrapping strategies to share!

Downhill good or downhill bad?

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Do you have any friends who have remained 29 or 39 for many, many birthdays? There’s an inclination among some to avoid the milestone birthdays. What do we have against the zero’s? Whenever asked, my Dad said he was “zero” for my entire childhood.

In an Indianapolis Star article, a mental health counselor notes how people can choose to ignore the negative aspects of milestone birthdays. The idea that “it’s all downhill from here.” Instead, make the choice to look at the milestone as a time to celebrate accomplishments and get motivated to do something new, different, or challenging.

Did you know most of us make our biggest decisions in the year leading up to the milestone birthday?bungee-jumping-1

A study published last month by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences noted that the transition year to the new decade is when most people step back and re-evaluate.

For instance, Science of Us coverage of their work noted that there were 950,000 men aged 29, 39, 49 or 59 among the more than 8 million male users of a dating site designed for people seeking affairs (I’m not providing that link!). They said this was 18% more than would be expected by chance. They found similarly among women but not as strong.

Alter and Hershfield also note there are more suicides in a -9 year. Additionally, there’s research suggesting people train harder and get faster times in a marathon run the year before they turn 30 or 40.

Share below! What has a milestone birthday or its approach prompted you to do in answering the “What Am I Doing with My Life” question.

Single on your 30th? Have a Pepper Person!

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If you are single on your birthday and that bothers you, don’t live in Denmark. As if turning 30 isn’t a traumatic enough experience, there’s an added level of anxiety-inducing fun among the Danish.

According to Brian Dahl’s site about Danish getaways, a bachelor at 30 is a pebersvend (or “pepper man”) while the unmarried female of the same age is a pebermø (“pepper maid”).

Just in case your neighbors are unaware of your solo status, its a tradition to put a big pepper mill in front of the home of the birthday guy or gal. No, we’re not talking a little pepper grinder someone might use in a restaurant to spice up your entree. This is made out of “something like 2 or 3 old oil drums filled with concrete and decorated with a big number 30.”

Here’s one version I found on Flickr: Pebermø

Or a male version also from Flickr:

Pebersvend på lars tyndskid's

These are even bigger than Dahl led me to imagine! And North Americans thought a cake with a big 30 on top was a tough reminder.

A good gift to give

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Birthday party for couple believed to be world’s oldest. Pic courtesy of Yorkshire Post

Reading about the world’s oldest couple – he’s 109 and she’s 102 – celebrating their birthdays together, I noticed the proud son’s comment about the joy of the whole family coming together to join in the fun.

This on the same day a friend told me she’s looking for a divorce lawyer. In wondering how the child of the relationship would adapt to the situation, I became curious what advice is available to help divorced parents navigate the challenges of celebrating their child’s birthday.

For children birthdays are all about fun and happiness and being the center of attention. I host a birthday blog, so of course I think this should be true for adults too.

Divorce Help for Parents reminds parents to focus on the child. Other tips are to: act like an adult, create opportunities for the child to celebrate with both parents (not necessarily together) and to include extended family. The advice that stands out to me? “Parents, you have it within your power to control your conflict with the other parent. Please, use it.” Well said.

Amy Ardnt, writing on Huffington Post, says “the best gift divorced parents can give their kids” is putting the kid first and making time spent together pleasant.

On WomansDivorce.com Heidi Woodard shares the efforts she and her ex-husband made to give their son a happy birthday party. The reward? Her son’s comment “I have the coolest parents in the world because you both work together to make me happy.”

Not all of us are going to make it to our 100s. Not all of us are going to make it as a couple. But, we can all make a decided effort to make a child’s birthday the best day it can be.

Ear yanking fun!

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If your ear gets tugged on your birthday, you might guess the tugger is Brazilian or maybe Hungarian. You’ll be able to tell the difference by whether or not they are also singing a rhyming song. Plus, once they start singing you might be able to guess the difference between Portuguese and Hungarian. Want a translation of the rhyme, though? Mental Floss tells us it means: “God bless you. May you live so long your ears reach your ankles.” American abroad Phil Done, who had his own ear pulled while teaching in Budapest in 2013, backs this up in his blog.

In another site’s list of top 10 odd birthday gestures, there’s even this creepy photo to illustrate the tradition: hungary-pulling-earlobes

 

Having already endured a toddler yanking on my earrings, I recommend choosing your birthday accessories carefully while in Hungary or Brazil.

Let them eat bread with sprinkles?

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Fairy bread for your birthday sounds cool, right? It might even be worth the crazy long flight to Australia or New Zealand to celebrate my special day there. Only, it sounds a lot better than I think it would taste.

According to Mental Floss, there’s a tradition on birthdays of eating white bread spead with butter and topped with sprinkles. This is called Fairy Bread (and, by the by, the sprinkles are called hundreds or thousands.

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Not sure how you’d make such a thing (because I know spreading butter and sprinkling something on top sounds tough)? Don’t worry: Here’s a recipe – yeah, it has only one instruction!

To make it more challenging, you might try out some of these fairy bread-inspired recipes.

The fairy bread wands look just like candy-covered pretzels sold in chocolate shops here. So, you could probably just visit Rocky Mountain Candy Co or the like if this is still too daunting a baking task.

For those, on the other hand, who want to take it up a notch there’s always baking a cake to look like Fairy Bread as this sugar-amped Sydney-based baker did.

Merging Birthday Traditions — Watch out!

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A marriage is a merging of family traditions and different backgrounds or cultures. I was born and raised in Canada. My husband was shaped by his years in South Carolina. But what’s an annual tradition that really creates a crisis in our household? The opening of the presents!

Growing up we had to wait until the end of the day to open any presents. If we’d gone to Baskin Robbins’ for a birthday club free cone, we had to wait until we came back from there.

My husband’s presents were opened earlier.

So, he wants to present his gifts early in the day — or worse he waits until dinner only to offer them up in a public space (strangers watching me accept gifts? I love the birthday wishes, but I like to keep my presents private).

Now, thanks to Mental Floss, I know that the Danish put presents around the child’s bed for her to see upon first waking up. So, maybe my hubby is actually Danish? But, then, I guess he would also put a Danish flag

outside our door each year to announce that someone within was having a birthday.

Another Danish tradition? Baking a cake person — either male or female depending on the birthday child’s gender — and eating the head first! So, we’ll blow out the candles and make a wish to fend off bad spirits for a year, but then chop the head off my cake doppelganger? That doesn’t raise my spirits.

cakeman

Photo courtesy of denmark-getaway.com

When/where do you like to open birthday presents? Comment below to share!

Thanks, I guess.

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Not sure what to get someone for their sixteenth birthday? Well, don’t follow the model of Queen Victoria‘s family.

In her day, birthdays were a day to offer instructions to young people. On her 14th birthday she was admonished to be reflective and “grow in goodness and become humbleminded” (as cited in Lewis, 1976).

To make sure that happened, at 16 she received a bust of her mother and illustrations of all the funerals she’d attended. Yeah, that’s a rousing way to celebrate turning another year older! At least you didn’t die as these folks did, Vicky!

What’s the weirdest gift you’ve been given? Comment below to share.