Birthdays

What does it take to have a perfect birthday celebration?

Kids consider birthdays as one of the best days in their entire year.   It is commonly associated with huge gifts, meatiest spaghetti, clowns, games, colorful balloons and cakes decorated with their current favorite cartoon character.  As one grows older, birthday celebrations are redefined according to his/her own “adult and mature” version of it. 

Birthday gifts are replaced with tiny (but expensive) gifts, hugs, emails and comments on facebook accounts.  Birthday bash is limited to closest friends but the food is not already restricted to the usual spaghetti, hotdogs and cakes.  Clowns and games are replaced with anecdotes, messages and wishes of friends during birthday dinners.

With these changes, one aspect remains the same:  we choose to celebrate our birthdays with the ones we love.  As much as possible, we want to spend every second of our special day with people who can make us smile and laugh even on the worst days of our lives.  

Through the years, it is the people whom we spend our birthday celebrations with that we remember the most - NOT the food, drinks, cakes or even grand gifts on our birthdays.

(edited) journal entry dated 10.09.07