With my birthday (September 8th) having passed earlier this month, naturally I've been doing some reflecting on birthdays past, as I tend to do around any special occasion.
It's always weird to really think about the fact that your birthday, while a big deal to you and the people in your life, is really just another day to the rest of the world. It's also always been weird to me to think that every day is actually someone's birthday. I remember my mom having that conversation with me when I was about six-ish. It seemed fascinating and outlandish at the time, to think that someone was celebrating a birthday every single day. But it makes sense, obviously.
I grew up in the 90s, when Nick Jr. was a thing and was hosted by a character simply called "Face". He was, literally, a face, who often changed colors, and would introduce the shows and shorts within the programming block, and sometimes just pop up in between with a fun little anecdote. One such anecdote was a daily reminder that "Today is someone's birthday!", where Face wore a party hat and had a little blower in his mouth, and would wish a happy birthday to any of the lucky birthday celebrants watching, on that day. I was, sadly, always in school during the Nick Jr. block on my birthday, and it didn't air on weekends, so I actually never got a chance to be wished a happy birthday by a 90s childhood icon.
An example of a Face birthday bumper
That was the thing about my birthday, in childhood. It was always so close to the first day of school. In my area, school usually starts right around Labor Day, which falls on the first Monday of September each year. Sometimes we'd go back for a few days, have that Monday off, and then restart the following Tuesday, or sometimes we'd go back immediately after Labor Day, but never late enough that I had September 8th off. I don't believe that my birthday ever fell on the first day of school itself, but I know it was the second or third day a few times. My mom was usually pretty good to me about allowing "mental health days" here and there, but no way would I ever have been allowed to miss school that early on in the year! I recently looked through the calendar on my phone, and realized that for my entire school career, 1992 through 2005, I only ever had my birthday off three times, which would have been my ninth, fourteenth, and fifteenth. I don't remember my fourteenth birthday at all, actually, which is weird because I have many very vivid memories of the year that I actually was fourteen (my freshman year of high school, 9/11, my grandfather's death, the death of my first pet, and an evolution in the way I thought about Halloween, to name a few), but I definitely remember that my ninth birthday party was Casper themed, and I got some Beanie Babies and a Gymnast Stacie doll. I remember the dress I wore on my fifteenth, and settling for Scooby Doo plates when I couldn't find Halloween ones yet. My aunt bit her lip at some point during dinner and talked about how much she hated the taste of blood.
The one perk of being in school in my birthday, though, at least in elementary school, was that we were allowed to bring in cupcakes for the class, and, for that one day, I got to feel popular, as every other kid wanted to be the one to help pass the cupcakes out. It's funny how competitive kids got about things like that. The two things that stick out to me most about my elementary school birthday cupcakes, are the bear sprinkles I was so excited about in kindergarten, and then, in third grade, having a boy, who was actually brand new to our school, hand back his cupcake at the end of the day and say, "Next time, don't bring chocolate. I'm allergic to chocolate." As if a) I was going to have another birthday the following week, and b) I possibly could have known that having met this kid maybe three days earlier. Sometimes we would celebrate in small ways after school, maybe a special dinner or a shopping spree. My aunt took me on some great birthday shopping sprees over the years, first to Toys R Us, and then to favorite clothing stores or even the mall as I got into my teen years, always with some Halloween shopping thrown in. One year, I believe it was my thirteenth birthday, we actually hit a piece of scrap metal that had landed on the highway on the way back from a discount designer clothing store and a Michael's, and were stranded on the side of the road until my uncle finally came by with a spare tire. The year I turned twelve, and had just started middle school, my mother actually put together a little pre-party for me on the night of my birthday, as the transition to a new school was taking a stressful toll on me. She picked me up a few small gifts from some local shops. and we had some little pastries that night ahead of my actual party on the weekend.
I absolutely loved birthday parties in my childhood. When it came to my birthday, one of my favorite things to do was go to this little local store, called Lorraine's Party Surprise, and choose my birthday party theme for the year. That store was an absolute dream to me in my childhood and I think there's a part of me that will always wish I could have grown up to run something like that myself. The store was far from huge, but it was jam-packed with everything you'd need for a perfect birthday party. By the front registers, there were boxes full of party favors and noisemakers, and the aisles were just bursting with so many different themed party supplies to choose from. I was always so excited to see what they'd have from year to year; choosing my party theme was probably the second biggest decision-making time of my childhood, aside from choosing my Halloween costume. And I absolutely loved how everything coordinated. Dinner plates, dessert plates, cups, napkins, goody bags, centerpieces, tablecloths, even cake decorations. There were popular characters, and some more original designs. The one that sticks out in my mind the most is the theme I chose for my fifth birthday: An image of a ginger-colored cat in a black dress, holding up a hand mirror. I wish I could find a picture of it now. I also remember a puppy and kitten themed party from another year, I want to say maybe my sixth. I had just really started learning how to use the phone that year, and this was way before smartphones. My parents had managed to find wrapping paper that almost matched my themed supplies, and I insisted on keeping a piece to hang on the refrigerator. Someone in my family called that morning to say happy birthday, and I remember holding up the phone to the refrigerator after describing the wrapping paper, and saying, "Look at it!", much to my parents' amusement. I don't remember when, exactly, Lorraine's closed, but the last time I remember being there was when I was thirteen, and actually was planning a first birthday party for my aunt's dog. (One day I'll go deeper into my obsession with party planning...I literally always wanted to be celebrating as a child and would find any excuse to throw a party be it for a pet, a doll, etc.)
We often had barbecues and things over the summer, so I thought nothing of it when aunts, uncles, and cousins from both sides of the family came over about a week before my birthday. In fact, it was likely Labor Day weekend, making it even less conspicuous. The plan was a plain old barbecue that weekend, and my birthday party the next. The only thing that would have even been slightly suspicious that morning was that my mother told me she would have to use the tablecloth I chose for my birthday party (I believe it was just plain purple that year; I can't for the life of me remember what my actual party theme was.) as she had misplaced the one she had initially bought for that weekend, and we would get another one before my party.
When my relatives arrived, all seemed as usual. I played with my cousins, but kept getting annoyed that they seemed to be whispering amongst themselves quite a bit. I was a loner at school and often left out; my cousins were really the only other kids I felt comfortable with and close to at the time, so I remember us fighting throughout the day over the fact that they seemed to be keeping secrets from me. When my mother came downstairs to mediate one of our arguments, though, I swore I heard my cousin Michael whisper to her, "When are we going to have the surprise party?" I don't remember if I really thought anything of it, or just assumed he was confused as to which weekend we were supposed to be celebrating my birthday, because when we finally went back upstairs, and there was a cake on the table and balloons and presents around the room, and all of the adults yelled "Surprise!", I absolutely was surprised. It was a moment I would relive over and over again in the coming weeks, and still brings a smile to my face whenever I look back on it. The fact that my cousins, who were, for the most part, younger than I was, were tasked with distracting me and entrusted with such a secret, and didn't give it away even at the height of an argument, is honestly very impressive.
I remember getting balloons at that party, a bouquet of sorts of traditional "Happy Birthday" mylar balloons, that floated up to the ceiling, and I treasured them and played with them until they deflated, even going so far as to name them Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. I don't remember specifically what they looked like, but I remember how much fun I had with them during their brief stay in my home.
The following year, while visiting my grandparents for a weekend, I also had sort of a mini surprise party with my relatives on my father's side of the family. They chose a Lisa Frank Kittens theme, which I absolutely loved, and I remember getting a handful of different Barbies, including one that came with a dolphin that made a funny noise (Baywatch Barbie, I think.), and a more collectible "Dolls of the World" Barbie from Ireland that all my relatives were obsessed with. I'm not even sure if I, myself, really wanted the doll, but my family insisted that I should have it in my collection since we were of Irish heritage. This was also the year that, on my candles at that party, I wished for a stuffed toy of a dog named Nuzzle from a TV series called The Puzzle Place. I never did get it in my childhood, and I never forgot that. Later on, in my most angsty, dramatic moments in teenhood, I would cite this as proof that things never worked out in my favor, and that wishes did not come true. I used to tell that story often, and one year, a good friend that I met online, through childhood nostalgia, actually finally sent me a Nuzzle plushie, dressed in a pumpkin costume, too! It was such a fun, full-circle moment.
Birthdays I've had throughout my adult life, I don't tend to remember as many details of. The only thing that really sticks out in my mind is the year, somewhere in my twenties, when I woke up to a power outage due to a blown transformer near my old elementary school. I do my best to make the day feel special, still, often visiting favorite places or treating myself to something special, but I do miss the old days of family parties and wishlists and themed decorations.
There truly is nothing like being a kid.
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