January and that means . . .

It's birthday season around here!  The first 3 months of the year are Birthday Central in our family.  It is insane the number of birthdays to be celebrated!  I hate to keep using those darn excitement points!!!! but I can't be emphatic enough about the plethora of birthdays that are about to commence.  Here's a little preview:

Jan 11 - Good friend and should be a blood relation Connye
Jan 13 - Best friend all through my childhood Robin
Jan 15 - My Papa r.i.p.  (more about this in a separate post)
Jan 21 - Anniversary of the first date with Mr. Big Ed
Jan 22 - Rachel Pie's birthday
Then we have my nephew, my sister r.i.p., my step-dad r.i.p., my 2 nieces, my aunt, my father-in-law, my 2 brothers-in-law, 2 sisters-in-law, etc.  You get the idea.  It's  HUGE list. And we haven't gotten to April yet.

Unfortunately, we don't live near all of these people so we don't get to celebrate with all of them.  And that's sad because I do love a birthday party.  I love birthday cake.  I love to watch people open their presents.  Birthday parties rock!

So my participation in a lot these long-distance festivities is limited to a phone call, a card or a gift in the mail.   Sometimes when we get a big group together we do a Mass Birthday Celebration.  Whomever has a birthday in that season gets gifts and a cake and gets to be with the family even though it might not be their real birthday, it's a real celebration and there's real intention behind it.

How do you celebrate birthdays?  Do you acknowledge with gifts, parties, cakes or a card?  It was really interesting when we lived in Mexico to see the different kids' parties my kids were invited to.  In Mexico it is customary to do a HUGE and I mean HUGE blow-out party for the 3rd birthday.  Not much for the first or second, but come the 3rd.  Well, pull out all the stops!  Huge, like you would think it was a wedding, huge.  Interesting, right?  So at the parties we went to of my kids' classmates, most everything is the same; kids running around, organized chaos, except the food.  The kids in Guadalajara had cake and jell-o as opposed to ice cream.  Now jell-o down there is like the most elaborate layered up stuff you have ever seen.  Absolutely gorgeous.  Very impressive stuff.  When we were in Monterrey every party included corn.  All over Mexico you can buy roasted ears of corn and when you buy it they slather it in mayonnaise, lime juice and powdered chile.  Believe it or don't, this stuff is good.  At the kids' parties the moms all had crock pots full of corn kernels (like frozen corn) with the mayo, lime and chile and served it in cute little paper dixie cups.

I miss doing fun parties.  As we grow up we don't play as much, we don't have theme parties, we get kind of boring and dull, don't we?  I threw a surprise party for my husband when we were living in Guadalajara and we did a big pinata.  It was so much fun.  I am sure our friends who hosted were thrilled to have their shrubs beaten to death by those of us who missed hitting the actual pinata!

Now I am in the mood for cake.  With pretty frosting.  and big pink roses.  and maybe raspberry filling.  Mmmmmm.  You can invite me to anyone's birthday and I will celebrate and be happy even if I don't know the honoree!