Christmas Birthday

Hey, I’m Mom’s Christmas Present!
(The following is written by Devanie, creator of www.christmasbirthday.net. Please, take my ego down a notch and write in with your own memories of being born on or around Dec. 25. The e-mail is info@christmasbirthday.net.)

Probably the reason I have such a healthy ego (joking here) is that my mom has always told me I was the “best Christmas present she ever got.” I was born in the afternoon of Dec. 25, 1971.

Christmas has always been a fun time for me, as my nuclear family has always made a point of making sure that my birthday was recognized throughout the day. In fact, the only times I’ve been disappointed or resentful about my Christmas birthday is times when we’ve been visited extended family that hasn’t been conditioned to acknowledge the fact that the world revolves around me.
Here are some of my favorite things about being born on Christmas: I get to “stretch out” the festivities in a way other kids don’t. I ask for a home-cooked birthday dinner of choice one day, a restaurant dinner out another day and, even as an adult, I usually get to cram a family party in there, too. Milk it, baby! I like the fact that, contrary to what one might assume, friends and family rarely forget my birthday, since it’s an easy day to remember. I even get cards from people who “don’t do birthdays” just because they happened to remember mine was coming up, or because they were out Christmas shopping and decided to pick something up for me, too. Starting at about age 12, I’ve opted for the larger, combined Christmas-birthday gift. My family was never rolling in dough, but this strategy got me a boombox in junior high, a mini TV in high school and some other cool stuff I wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise. I also preferred birthday pie to birthday cake.
OK, here are some of things I don’t like about being born on Christmas: While some Christmas babies relish being able to have the day off from work and school, I kinda missed the attention I saw other people get there on their birthdays. Additionally, there is a long dry spell between gifts. When I was a kid, if I wanted something big, I had to wait a long time or scrounge up the money myself. And usually, at Christmas time, everyone’s short of money, so you don’t get a gift, or you get a combined birthday-Christmas gift that usually isn’t much pricier than a single gift. (Yes, I was materialistic as a kid. Some say I still am.) The birthday presents wrapped in Christmas paper—that bugs me to this day. I don’t mind the commercially made “Christmas Birthday” cards, but I don’t like getting a regular Christmas card with “Happy Birthday” written in.
Growing up with a Christmas birthday, one thing I was always grateful for was that I wasn’t born on Dec. 24 or Dec. 26. (No offense to anyone born on those dates).

‘Ruining’ Christmas?
by Stacy
I was born at 7:30 p.m. December 25, 1984. One of my favorite stories ever since I was little was how I ruined Christmas that year. It was said jokingly by everyone except for my sister, who had just turned 4 when I was born.
I was actually supposed to be born December 15. All along my mother said, “I don’t care when the baby’s born, as long as it’s not Christmas Day.” Christmas morning she woke up with contractions. I think that was probably the only year that our parents had to wake up a child on Christmas morning.
So, she woke up my father, they woke up my sister, and proceeded to go through the fastest unwrapping of presents ever. I kind of wish I could’ve seen all the frenzy. But after unwrapping all these cool new presents and toys, my parents took my sister to our grandparents’ house without any of her new toys. There, they went through another fast unwrapping, then my parents went to the hospital. This wasn’t even the extent of the craziness. That year the family Christmas ended up being my grandmother, my grandfather and my sister. My uncles were all really sick so they stayed home, and my aunt couldn’t come into town because of the weather. I kind of enjoyed having ruined Christmas because of all the times my sister picked on me.
One good thing about being a Christmas baby is the surprise parties. You can’t have a party on your birthday, and I remember a few different occasions when I thought we had planned a party for a certain day, but then there ended up being a surprise party for me. For people who can have a party on their actual birthday, it’s kind of hard to have a surprise party.

Can’t Celebrate on the Right Day
by Jessica
I was my mother’s first (and only) child. As she told the story, oddly enough she said she got pregnant upon first try, which was Easter Sunday! I guess my parents did it after church.
Anyway, I was not due until January, so when my mom awoke early Christmas morning to a wet bed, she assumed the waterbed had sprung a leak. The year was 1977 and waterbeds were all the rage back then, I digress. On further investigation it was discovered the bed was intact and the baby was coming early. My mom called her doctor who told her since this was her first baby she would be in labor for a day or more and to call him when the contractions were closer. My mom and dad attempted to go about their day by going to my father’s parent’s home for Christmas breakfast and opening gifts. My grandfather was a stickler for only having Christmas on Christmas, regardless of progressing labor or other serious incidents that should arise. It was soon clear that Christmas was going to be spent in the hospital and my parents headed to the local hospital after placing another call to their physician.
The nurse assigned to my mother was clearly pissed off for being forced to work Christmas Day. She was rude and neglectful of my mother, refusing to check her progress or call the doctor. Again, my mom got the “this is your first baby” speech. It was now approaching noon and I was ready to make my way out, of course not realizing what a poor choice of days to be born. My father finally ran into the hall. grabbed the first doctor he saw and dragged him into the room to examine my mother. Ten minutes later my parents had a baby girl.
After hearing the news, many family members thought of “cute” names for me: Noel, Holly (you get the idea). My parents, trying to spare me future pain, decided on a non-Christmas name, Jessica. But as it turns out, people seem to think my parents were giving me a feminine version of Jesus. NO! That is not what they were doing! Three of the same letters does not mean that was their intention at all.
Well, I left the hospital in a giant red-and-white Christmas stocking that I have to this day. I thought that was special until one year my mom remarked, “You were supposed to be born on New Years Day. If you were the first baby of the New Year, I would get a bunch of free stuff and had my picture in the paper.” “Sorry to disappoint,” I responded.
I have survived never having a party as a kid. Well, we tried one year and only one kid came and I cried. I have survived the calls to wish me a Merry Christmas and forgetting to wish me a happy birthday, from my own father. I have survived turning 16 with no driver’s license, 21 with no first drink and acknowledgement of the occasion. I have even survived year after year of the trite comments and lack of gifts. But this year I am feeling especially down. I will be 30 in just a few weeks now. I want to celebrate it! I want to go out Christmas Day and have a few cocktails, stand on a table and shout, “I am 30!” and kick my legs up in the air. I have some great friends who would celebrate with me if my birthday were any other day, but they have kids and family obligations.
I feel like celebrating on any other day just does not convey the feeling of it actually being my birthday, not to mention the alternate day to celebrate is never the day before or after. This is the first Christmas where I am not looking forward to any gifts for myself or even asking for things like I usually do. I just want one day to be special for me. I do not think those with non-holiday birthdays can relate because while they may not have a special day every year for their birthday, they have at least had one in their life thus far.

It’s Not Bad at All
by Chris

I have been cursed (blessed) with being born on Christmas. To me, it’s really not that bad.
I’ve never worked or went to school on my birthday. My mother has always got me something special for my birthday. Yes, I have got the combo gift but it really wasn’t bad. In the mid-’80s I got a TV/monitor combo, which was really cool and I knew we did not have lots of money so I didn’t milk my mom for anything, either.
I never really wanted a birthday party as a kid. I’ve always wanted to be “that guy” who really did not care about birthdays and it’s worked out that way. I can remember as a kid in 3rd grade we always had the Christmas gift swap. There was a really “poor” kid who had a present of a puzzle that had pieces missing. I’m not really sure how we knew but nobody wanted that gift. Somebody else got the gift and starting crying (since he knew he got the puzzle). I walked over and asked him if he wanted to trade. He did and I opened up the puzzle and thought it was a nice puzzle (actually it did not have any pieces missing but it was not a “new” puzzle). The teacher started crying and could not believe that I would do something like that. She bought me an ice cream later that day for doing that. My family has always been good (even today) about my birthday. My oldest brother (12 years older) always gets me the cool Christmas/Birthday cards. One had “People always think the stork brings babies,” you open the card and it says, “in your case it was Santa.”
Now I have an uncle (on my wife’s side) who shares the same birthday as me. We talk for about 20 seconds to wish each other Happy Birthday and then move on. I was born in 1968.