The Christmas birthday is a tricky thing. It's amazing how many people just don't get it.
For me, my older sister has a Dec 18th birthday, so my whole life I grew up with a holiday birthday. All the rules that must be followed for a Christmas birthday were ingrained in me from an early age. When I was pregnant with P5 and due just before Christmas I figured, well - at least I know how to do this.
Honestly, it's not ideal. I feel bad for the kid - I feel bad for all kids with a birthday within a month of Christmas. It's a busy time of year, an expensive time of year, it's during cold/flu season - not the greatest of times to be hosting parties and getting birthday gifts on top of Christmas gifts. But it is what it is, and you just have to embrace it and do the best you can.
Throughout the year I tend to buy little things for P5 fairly often, I do it because I feel so guilty about his Christmas birthday. This year as he turns 3, is really the first year he is cognizant of the whole birthday thing. This morning he woke up, raised his arms over his head and yelled, "It's my birthday!" Actually his birthday is tomorrow, but today was his party so really that is what he was counting.
Yesterday a large package arrived from my in-laws. I opened it up to find a tetris puzzle of gifts carefully packed so that they were able to squeeze in a mass of gifts for the kids. It was overwhelming to look at how much stuff they sent for the kids. I knew that P5's birthday presents were in there too so I carefully began removing packages looking for the birthday paper among a sea of red and green holiday paper. Towards the bottom I found one wrapped in stripped birthday paper with a card attached from my MIL. I shuffled through the box some more and thought, "Huh, that's it for P5's birthday?" Surely there was a mistake...for M2's birthday she received upwards of 10 presents from them. As I repacked the mass of gifts I spotted a Christmas tree paper wrapped gift with a post it attached indicating it was for P5's birthday from my SIL. I pulled it out and stared at it for a minute trying to figure out if it was a joke.
But then I started to get pissed. Seriously? A huge box of presents for Christmas and two token birthday gifts. I tend to be direct so I texted my SIL right away and in a friendly way expressed that it is not OK to use Christmas paper for birthday gifts. She replied that she was out of birthday paper so it was Christmas paper or nothing. Really? If it were May would you say, "Oh I'm out of birthday paper I guess I'll just use Christmas paper for this gift." My suspicion is no. You go to the store and you buy birthday paper. I made a special trip to the store last week to buy birthday paper! The poor kid is getting ripped off enough getting his whole toy load within one week, can we just maybe try to make his birthday a little special? My SIL also argued that he was young enough it wouldn't matter. Perhaps that's true, but he's no dummy. A year from now I think he would definitely notice the holiday paper (his 4 year old sister pointed out, "Hey, why is P's birthday present wrapped in Christmas paper?") I wasn't trying to be a jerk pointing out the obvious, I just wanted to nip this thing in the bud now so that it doesn't happen again.
I'm still rather disturbed by the extreme present imbalance between M2 and P5's birthdays. That will be a whole nother conversation...perhaps one not to do over text or email but by phone or in person to casually mention that yes he is young, but kids notice these things and it can be very damaging to their self esteem if they feel like a sibling is receiving preferential treatment. I'm not saying they need to buy him 10 birthday gifts next year, 1 is fine, but then give M2 just 1 gift at her birthday to make it fair. Ugh, it's not an easy conversation to have and I hate to sound like a jerk, but I just want to look out for my kids and try to shield them from disappointment.
Tonight as I surveyed the damage that 16 small children had done to my house and cleaned up the frat party worthy number of beer/wine bottles the parents went through I felt this sense of defeat (and it could've been worse...given the time of year it is we had a ton of "maybe" RSVP's that turned into no shows and a few yes's that bailed out due to sick kids). By the time people left, my casted foot was throbbing, my children were both in full meltdown from overstimulation. I put a lot of effort into the party to make it fun and special. It wasn't a pinterest worthy party, but my kid loved it and I guess in the end that is all that matters.
No comments:
Post a Comment