This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Kenyon chapter.
People are very protective of their birthdays. I mean, it’s an entire day devoted to celebrating, well, them. Holiday birthdays are a particularly touchy subject. In my experience, everyone in the world who does not have a holiday birthday has great amounts of sympathy for those people who do have holiday birthdays, but who’s to say we want the sympathy. I happen to love my birthday, very, very much. I’m convinced it’s the greatest day of the year. It also happens to fall on Christmas Day. The majority of people to whom I tell my birthdate tell me that they are so sorry that my birthday is on Christmas and I’m always confused. Why are you sorry? It’s awesome! I never have to go to school on my birthday, people rarely forget when it is, and I get double presents. I don’t really see what’s so bad about it.
However, the deeper I dug into the subject of holiday birthdays the clearer this realization became: people whose birthdays fall on actual celebrated holidays aren’t bitter about their birthdays, it’s the people whose birthdays fall around the holidays or on some random holiday that no one celebrates, like Arbor Day (not that I’m dissing Arbor Day, I think it’s fantastic…)
Most people, me included, enjoy the hype that comes along with their birthday holiday. When people count down to a holiday they’re almost always like “OMG, it’s 15 days until Halloweenand YOUR BIRTHDAY!” Though people may just be excited about the prospect of dressing up and eating mass amounts of candy, they remember to throw your birthday in their exclamations about the upcoming holidays, which of course would make anyone feel special. In all honesty, most people aren’t like “OMG, 15 days until Flag Day!” So, if you’re born on June 14, you kind of get looked over on the whole holiday birthday deal. And those poor, poor people born so that they live a life filled with birthdays riding on the coattails of a major national holiday. I mean, I would hate it if the Easter bunny was always stealing my thunder.
There are those out there, though, who make the best of their situation. One of my nearest and dearest whom is born on July 5th has deemed the Fourth of July the eve of her birthday. She firmly believes that the world is just preparing to celebrate her birth a day early. She may not be born on a national holiday, but she makes sure that the pomp and circumstance is creatively incorporated into her birthday celebrations. I guess you just got to make it a glass half full situation!
For me, it’s a glass completely full situation. My birthday is FANTASTIC. So, don’t feel sorry for us holiday birthdayers. We thoroughly enjoy our birthdays. Really, you should feel sorry for all the poor saps our there who just aren’t as cool as us!