Birthday Traditions

There is one tradition that my family follows multiple times every year, that is birthdays. It doesn’t matter what your age is in my family if it is your birthday you will get a birthday party, no matter how old or young you are. This has been a tradition for as long as I can remember and for as long as my parents have been together. My grandparents on my mom’s side started this tradition when their children started having kids. This was a way to keep the family close and seeing each other at least once a month. If there isn’t a birthday that month there is always at least a holiday of some kind where we will get together and have dinner. Unlike many other families mine tries to keep in touch with each other and keep family time a priority.

Usually, our first step to planning someone’s birthday is to make sure we celebrate it on a day that no one has to work on so that everyone is able to come. We will usually ask everyone what day works best for them so that we can make it so that everyone’s schedule lines up. After this, we ask everyone to bring some kind of food and make sure that everyone has a different thing to make for the party so that we don’t get too much of one type of food. Then we either have someone bake the cake or if time is short, we order a cake for the party. Then when we finally get together usually we have snacks and the food that people made lain out so that people can help themselves to it. Generally people will either end up watching a sports game on the T.V. or just talk in the kitchen. Eventually we will put the cake out and have the person with the birthday go sit in the kitchen and we will light the candles on the cake and have them blow them out while singing happy birthday. After that everyone gives them their presents and we watch the birthday person open their presents after this everyone usually goes back to doing what they were doing before or people will start to head out and back home.

I feel traditions are a very important part of families as they can bring the family closer together and give them something to bond over. Even if these traditions are small things such as simply getting together and watching a sports game together or as big as going on a family trip once a year. They can really help keep the family together and make it easier for someone to ask for help when they need it. I think that I will continue our tradition of always having a birthday party for someone in the future and even try to get my kids to do the same when they are older. This is because I believe that birthdays are special because it’s the day someone close to me came into existence and without that person being around I wouldn’t be the person I am today or I might not even exist. Along with this, I believe that celebrating someone’s birthday is very important for many reasons. First off it shows that person that we are grateful for them and everything they do. As well as showing them that they are an important member of the family and that we care for their well being. Lastly it makes them feel accepted and truly appreciated. Even though maybe older generations don’t always like celebrating their birthday they do appreciate the time and effort we put in to show how important they are to us.

Although celebrating someone’s birthday doesn’t seem like that important of a tradition I believe that it is, and I always feel bad for someone when they say that they didn’t celebrate their birthday. I feel the more time you invest in your family and make them a priority the closer your bonds with them will be and the happier everyone in your family will be. It’s interesting to see when new people come into our family and how they respond to our tradition. Some embrace it and some think we’re crazy. But no one ever escapes without having a birthday party.

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