Not Busy Enough? Throw a Birthday Party!

December 14, 2008 by Nicole
Filed under: Holidays

Christmas is the 25th, Kwanzaa always starts on the 26th and Hanukkah starts the evening of the 21st this year. So no matter who you are, we’re all basically on the same schedule this year…
except for those of us who as a result of:
poor planning,
or a lack of planning,
missed due dates,
early births,
or just ‘seeing what would happen’… now have a child born this time of year.

I would not trade my son or the day he was born (December 18th) for anything in the world. It is a great honor and pleasure to be his mother….

Now, with that said: candles, candy canes, wreaths, Santa… Plus: balloons, confetti, birthday cakes, ice cream. It’s a lot.

This is a busy time of year for everyone, needless to say. But the hard part for moms with holiday birthdays to plan isn’t the organization part; moms are good at the ‘whole organization thing’.

It’s the COORDINATION and TIME part that makes this hard-
Coordinating when we are celebrating what, when to emphasize what, when we are decorating, when we have the kids party, when we have the family party…

Last year my son came up with the awesome tradition (I thought) of celebrating his birthday, on his birthday (December 18th), and THEN decorating for Christmas AFTER his birthday. We went out the morning of the 19th, got our tree, decorated and had a whole week to get excited for Christmas.

I blogged about this last year on DC Metro Moms and WAS PSYCHED.

Perfect I thought, we’ll always have a sweet, unique Christmas tradition that no decorations go up until the 19th and who cares, because it will be a great reminder of our wondrous Christmas when we brought home our Little Man.

And this is the unique way our family celebrates this season…

There’s just one problem that I’ve just been reminded of:

4-year-olds change their minds… a lot.

My son just asked me a couple of days ago when our tree will be going up. I told him we’ve been over this a bunch of times- the 19th, the morning after his birthday.

And here it comes: He wants to decorate before his birthday this year, he decided.

The only problem – I have at least 20 4-and-5-year-olds coming to our home for a birthday party on the afternoon of the 18th, and both sides of our family coming over for an evening birthday party on the 18th too-
I can’t fit a Christmas tree and all the decorations with an extra 20+ children, plus adults, plus a magician in my house.

I explained this to my Little Man and he’s fine with it. But I’m kicking myself for being almost too concerned about ‘making his birthday special’ that I’m not giving Christmas enough of a build-up.

Solution: next year we’ll have my Little Guy’s birthday party somewhere besides our home (although I love home birthday parties) and we’ll decorate for Christmas BEFORE his birthday…

unless he changes his mind again.

Post Script: I think I need to take this whole birthday thing year by year. And relax. I’m making my son’s birthday special, and that’s what’s important.

At least I’m used to this: my dad’s birthday occasionally falls on Easter, my mom’s birthday sometimes falls on Thanksgiving, my brother’s birthday is the day after Halloween and my mother-in-law’s birthday sometimes is on Mother’s Day.

Enjoy the Holidays and birthdays you are celebrating right now