Birthday Traditions

Today is a birthday in our home. Kinda stinks because I'm not feeling so great and the little one is still having some issues from the stomach bug that hit last week but birthdays must go on!

Instead of the traditional birthday cake, we're doing brownies. In my family of origin, birthdays weren't always celebrated with all the traditional things (cakes, parties, store bought cards, properly wrapped presents) although it's not that there were NEVER any of those. But not as frequent as in many homes. And I love the way we did things. To me, that made birthday's extra special. One thing was that we often had something other than cake. Which makes sense to me seeing as how everytime we do a cake, half a cake sits around until I throw it out. When I make somehing people LIKE, it's gone within 2 days.

This leads me to ponder on birthday traditions and situations I've had to deal with because of the way we celebrate. It's always within family because people outside don't seem to mind how you do it and that makes it even more frustrating. As I was mixing the brownies a bit ago I came to the conclusion that it's best to assume that each family's traditions make their special time (be it birthdays, holidays or whatever) a really special time TO THEM. It's hurtful and offensive to say things that imply that certain things were more 'special' in your family than in that of the person you're talking to. Obviously YOU think your traditions are great but maybe they just have different ones that are equally special to them. Too often we're in a hurry to tell about what we do/did and why it's so special. Next time, I plan to just take the time to ask them about their traditions and ask what they enjoyed rather than feeling like I have to prove that our untraditional celebrations are some of the best memories in the world to me.