Birthday Fun Facts

Sliding into the new year?

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I am Canadian. I say this proudly even despite what I am about to tell you. Apparently, a tradition attributed to Canadians is buttering the nose of the birthday boy or girl.
This never happened to me. Nor to any of my friends (unless they were too embarrassed to ever mention it). Yet, if it’s on the Internet it must be true, right?


Mental Floss traces it to Canada in their fun birthday traditions video. The Revivalist recalls his own birthday greasings in the past and credits the tradition back to the Scots.
A Wheel and Distaff blog about the buttering garners comments from people across the United States who have experienced this tradition too.
A blogger on “Intangible Cultural Heritage, Folklore, and Oral History” talking about the tradition quotes a private blog with an American writer stating, “As the story goes, the butter is meant to help you slide into your new year!”

I love the idea of sliding into my new year, but I can think of many things I’d rather use:
icing (not buttercream…I hate buttercream)
ice cream
peanut butter
caramel
chocolate pudding
crème brulee
chocolate mousse…
Hmm. Mine would be a sticky start to the year.

Canadian or no, I’d love to hear if you have experience with this tradition. Some day, when I eventually write my book on birthdays, I can add more to the conversation around this greasy idea.

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!

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.

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.

Another Reason Not to Visit the Dark Ages

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When we imagine time travel — because all of us do — few of us decide the Dark Ages would be a great time to visit. Monty Python make it look funny in The Holy Grail, but funny from the outside watching from the comfort of our couches. We don’t actually want to live there.

There’s reference in Genesis to Pharoah celebrating a birthday. The Ancient Egyptians set aside money for garlands and animals to sacrifice to mark births. Rich Greeks celebrated the birth of a child, the child’s coming of age, and then marked an individual’s death with festivities on the anniversary of the person’s death. Plus, I already mentioned in a previous post, Caligula going a little crazy over his daughter’s first birthday. Julius Caesar also further pissed people off when he decided his birthday was a holiday fit for the gods (Oh, Caesar…when will you learn?).

But, then came the Dark Ages and the Christian Church decided celebrating one’s self was pagan. So, for about 1500 years people didn’t have birthdays. In fact, most people wouldn’t even have known when their birth date was. Lewis (1976) tells us it wasn’t until the 16th century that parish priests started recording birth dates.

So, along with your ideas of pestilence, illiteracy, disease-riddled hovels (if you were lucky), and other Dark Ages treats, add the absence of a birthday. I’d say a day without birthday candles is truly dark indeed.

Do your gifts ward off evil?

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Gift giving on birthdays dates all the way back to when people believed that good and evil fairies had power over people’s fate. That was about last Thursday, right?

According to Happy Birthdays Round the World, there used to be a belief that the date of someone’s birth was fraught with danger as it was a day of change which would make someone all the more susceptible to fairy misdeeds.

To fend off this threat, people would invite family and friends to come and protect the birthday person. Good fate was further guaranteed by giving gifts. In fact, Johnson (1963) tells us, the earlier the gifts and good tidings were offered the better chances the birthday person had of getting through the day of change safely.

Perhaps this is why, even today in Mexico, the birthday starts out with a rendition of Las Mañanitas.

I’ll tell you one thing — I would not be too thrilled to wake up to a mariachi band. A big part of birthday joy for me is the opportunity to sleep-in. I’ll take the help warding off evil fairies though…gifts welcome!

Image from buddhascrystalot00ozak

Image from buddhascrystalot00ozak

Because growing a kid isn’t hard enough?

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Reading about birthday traditions around the world I came across one that really gets me: Planting a tree at the birth of the child.

What an idea…Help the ozone! Add to the tree canopy! The child will have a tree of his or her own to care about, perhaps inculcating a love of nature along the way. All of these things came to mind, and I thought “what a great idea!”

Photo courtesy of Helene & Kev https://www.flickr.com/photos/93081182@N02/

Photo courtesy of Helene & Kev
https://www.flickr.com/photos/93081182@N02/

Then, I read about the superstition that the fate of the tree foretells the fate of the child. So, if say a little Swiss girl’s pear tree fails to thrive, it’s a bad omen for the girl. For boys in Switzerland their fate relies on an apple tree. Germany, apparently, is another country where this is a common tradition.

I have enough trouble with house plants!

With this tradition I’d be having to tend to a fledgling tree while raising an infant and trying to keep him or her alive too! The first year with a newborn was difficult enough. Adding a tree to the list of to-do’s is just too much.