Choosing Celebration: Celebrating Birthdays.

I recently heard a conversation between two workmates that I found quite surprising. The conversation went like this:

• Miss A: My phone is acting up. My birthday is around the corner; please get me a new phone for my birthday.
• Mr B: Birthday? What is a birthday?  What is the point of celebrating birthdays?

I was quite taken aback because celebrating birthdays has always been a given for me. When we were younger, my parents made it a point to celebrate the birthdays of the five children living in that house. There are two of us born two days apart in August, then the rest are November and two in December. So we would usually celebrate the August birthdays together and the end of year birthdays together. There would be cake and snacks and sweets and all the cousins and kids in the neighbourhood would be called to the party. There were definitely presents, though I do not recall most of them. My memories are of a happy time with friends and food. To date, when we meet old friends from way back, the conversation will usually drift fondly to those parties we had.

As we’ve grown up and scattered across the globe, it 

has become harder to meet for celebrations, but we do send cake, text, call… anything to show the celebrant that they are being thought of and celebrated. We will occasionally pull off a surprise party which is always well received. 

Listening to Mr B's views, I realised that celebrating birthdays is not as much a given for everyone as it was for me growing up. So I tried to win Mr B over to my school of thought with this line of reasoning. 

The thing is, time and life plod along steadily and it is possible to get to the end of say a year or five years and look back, and all you see is a mass of grey uneventfulness, probably interspersed with masses of black signifying times of loss and pain. Events that elicit strong emotions in us form stronger memories that last longer than those that do not cause any significant change to our emotional norm. Sad and hard times definitely carry strong negative emotions and so cause strong negative memories. On the flip side, good times are associated with happy memories.

It has been said that we should choose our celebrations because the tough times will choose themselves. Life can, and does throw us some serious curveballs that are usually unpredictable and hard to guard against. That they will come is a given. I think if we are not intentional about celebrating, it is possible to get to the end of the year, look back and see only grey and black. But if we are celebrating intentionally, that grey and black will be interspersed with bright colours here and there that cause us to sigh happily, say “It was a tough year, but there were some good times” and look to the future with optimism.

With responsibilities, schedules and interesting financial situations, it might be hard to find time and reason to celebrate, which is why I think celebrating birthdays is a good place to start. They happen at the same time each year, every year so can even be planned in advance.

And the celebration does not have to be celebrity style. Last year at work, some people decided to compile a list of birthdays in one of the departments. As one person’s birthday draws near, money is secretly collected and a cake and a few drinks purchased. In the afternoon, the birthday person is called, presented with their cake and for about 30 minutes, there is a mini celebration. The department is definitely a happier place partly because of this practice and it has spread to involve other departments as well.

Choose to celebrate. If you can’t find a reason or season, find a birthday and start with that.