by Jill Kemerer
Today is my youngest’s birthday! We’re pretty low-key in our household, so I thought I’d share what we do and find out what you do for birthdays.
Chocolate Pie with Oreo Crust. It’s not fancy, but it tastes SO good!
In the morning, we all wish the birthday boy or girl a Happy Birthday. Then everyone scatters for whatever is on their schedule that day. I wrap the gift(s), make the cake/dessert and sign the card before everyone gets home that evening.
Depending on the day and whose birthday it is, we usually stay in for dinner. I like to cook, so I make their favorite meal. However, my husband’s birthday is in March when we’re sick of being stuck inside all winter. We always take him out to dinner (and honestly, it’s like a birthday gift for us all!).
After we eat, we bring out the cake or requested dessert–cake, chocolate pie or chocolate lasagna are favorites–and ice cream. We sing “Happy Birthday” and light the candles, and as we snack on the sweets, presents are opened and pictures are taken.
When the kids were younger, my husband and I threw a party for their friends every other year. I couldn’t handle planning a big party with tons of kids every year! While I’m glad my kids loved these parties, I was very thankful when they were over. There’s something exhausting about trying to keep a dozen small children occupied for two hours. All you parents/grandparents who do this every year, I salute you! A party planner, I am not. 🙂
Now you know how we celebrate birthdays. I’d love to hear how YOU celebrate them! Leave a comment!
Have a terrific day!
Thoughts On Plot 
That looks so good, I could eat it for breakfast! At our house we do cake and presents. Nothing fancy. Then the kids do something fun with a few friends. The unique is more in an old fashioned birthday song we sing after the regular one.
I could eat it for breakfast too! Haha! Birthdays at your house sound fun. 🙂
Our traditions are similar to yours. We would sing the ‘good morning’ song in Spanish (My husband is from Peru so there are many Latin customs that we follow as well.)
However, with four kids, two years apart, there were always kids at the house. and we saw that as part of our ministry to the community. For their birthdays, we couldn’t afford to do much so I’d cook their favorite meal on the actual day adn then the weekend before, after or when the next paycheck came that had a few dollars extra, we’d have anywhere from three to ten children over on Friday night for pizza and videos. Then they’d have a sleepover and we’d make Pancakes (My mother’s special recipie from her family in Norway). Even with the last one in high school now, he’s already planning who to invite… they eat a lot more at this age. but they still love having their ‘sleepovers’ and the college kids still come an visit.
I love this, Bonnie! And it’s so sweet to know they still look forward to their sleepovers. 🙂 The memories are the real gift!
[…] My youngest had a birthday yesterday, and I talked about birthday traditions over at Thoughts on Plot. Stop by and share yours, “Birthday Traditions – Heartwarming Thursday.” […]
Our birthday celebrations are low key, too. Summer birthdays for my girlies made it almost impossible to have school chums birthday parties. When they were small, we would go out to dinner at a restaurant where the waitstaff would sing. I always baked a cake. Sometimes we would have a party with Grandma and Grandpa. As they got older, they didn’t like the attention at a restaurant so the celebration changed to a dinner at their choice of restaurant, a movie, and cake which I baked to their request. When the Young One was 8, the baking of her cake didn’t go so well and it baked uneven. The gap was too big to fill with frosting so I filled the gap with white chocolate chip bits, added candy things for eyes, hair, etc. and called it a monster cake. Apparently, she really loved that cake so a few years ago when she was 20 or 21, she requested the moster cake! Hard to recreate a happy accident, but I did it! 😀
No one in my family likes the restaurant singing, either! I love the celebration change–dinner, movie and cake! Perfect! And that is hilarious about the monster cake. You didn’t realize you were creating a whole new thing, did you? You’re so creative, it doesn’t surprise me!