Birthday Traditions

[alysee]

With birthday season here I have been thinking about birthdays. What are your birthday traditions for your kids? 

We do streamers on their bedroom door when they are asleep and do a giant balloon on their dining room chair and they are allowed to pick dinner and breakfast for the day.

Now that the kids are older they are allowed to pick 2 friends to do a fun activity - movies, trampoline park, art day, whatever they want. 

 

 

[Kassia]

Mine are grown, but we did very similar things when the kids were home.  They woke up to decorations and balloons and got to pick their favorite dinner and dessert and activities for the day.  Lots of fun!  🙂 They would decorate/frost their own cake/cupcakes sometimes too.  

[Ditto]

Their birthday cake is breakfast.  This has been a favorite since I started it when they were too young to even remember it.   Their favorite meal (or restaurant, their choice) is for dinner.  They also pick the activities we do that day.   But by far, they will tell you that having birthday cake for breakfast is the best part of the day.   

[HomeAgain]

We tend to do small, intimate birthdays here.  The kid picks a special meal and it can be anything - eating out, having it made, whatever.  This year's meals were an elaborate feast of Chinese food with several dishes that took hours and a shorter meal made by dh that had a bunch of favorite foods.  Same with the dessert- it can be whatever they like, homemade or bought.  I'm pretty competent at cakes and other sweets.  It is family consensus that cookie dough lasagna was a one time thing, though. 🤣 Sounded brilliant, but way too sweet.

And then we allow each to pick how they want to celebrate, but as they get older we hand over more of the decision making and budget

There is no school on birthdays.

Gifts are kept small and personal.  They usually total under $100, and it's 1-2 from us.  Oldest ds has taken on the role of absolutely spoiling the bejeezus out of youngest, though, and we only restrict the type of gift. 

Birthday morning there are no decorations, but there are presents at the table and cards.  It's become kind of a thing to find the most outrageous set up.  This year oldest ds had unicorn themed:  A large unicorn and pegasus gift box with rainbow paper and a card that lit up with rainbows and song.  Youngest ds was gifted a box of cereal with his present as the "Fabulous Prize Inside!!" and his own awesome interactive cards.

[Eos]

Before empty nest: before breakfast I would put a special cloth on the table and flowers, candles, etc around which gifts accumulated throughout the day, then usually did presents and cake at teatime. I would make their favorite meal for supper.

Now with kids out in the world, it's either traveling to them and taking them out or else family zoom. Youngest had hers at college this year but we ended up celebrating with her there since it was close to Thanksgiving. Dh and I went to Portland to visit ds for his birthday and took a long walk and brought him a gift and yummy dinner out. 

Edited May 19 by Eos

[Arcadia]

Birthday kid picks the place to eat out and also their birthday cake. They are also given some cash to spend on wants. That was also the tradition when I was a kid. My husband’s family didn’t celebrate kids’ birthday so my husband never had a birthday cake as a kid. His siblings buy birthday cakes for their kids.

[almondbutterandjelly]

We always play the YouTube video of a really fake Darth Vader singing Happy Birthday.  Plus a video of a Peter Pan record Birthday Song from my childhood.

[Kassia]

1 hour ago, almondbutterandjelly said:

We always play the YouTube video of a really fake Darth Vader singing Happy Birthday.  

Do you have a link for that?  I'd love to use that for my kids' birthdays.

I used to play the birthday song from The Beatles for DH every year.  

 

[SKL]

• Woken up to happy birthday greetings, balloons, cards, gifts, and cake for breakfast.  (Save the small Mylar balloons - apparently they last forever.)
• Kid chooses dinner out.
• We try to do an activity involving friends and/or travel sometime close to the birthday.  As the kids get older, a trip to the mall may be preferred.  😛

[athena1277]

In our family, you get to pick your birthday cake/frosting flavors and choose what is for dinner (must be meal type food, not sugar).  You also get to go to Dollar Tree and pick any balloon you want.  And of course, presents.  We were doing a big party at ages 5, 10, & either 15 or 16.  However, my 8yo has never had a big party because when she turned 5 so much was still closed or restricted because of Covid.  Thankfully, she has never complained.  We will do something big when she turns 10.

[Beth S]

We copied my cousin's family tradition of a 10 step Treasure Hunt, with small clues (placed around the yard/neighborhood) and $1 treats in each location.

(I started out doing 1 step for each year, but it got to be too much when they were getting older.)

We're now Empty Nesters, but our dgd comes this week, which happens to include her birthday.  So she'll get a Treasure Hunt too!

[almondbutterandjelly]

20 hours ago, Kassia said:

Do you have a link for that?  I'd love to use that for my kids' birthdays.

I used to play the birthday song from The Beatles for DH every year.  

If that doesn't work, it's on Youtube under Darth Vader Sings Happy Birthday To You.

And then this is Happy Birthday to You by Peter Pan Players and Orchestra.

[skimomma]

We have a special small birthday quilt (made by an aunt) that goes on the dining room table for the day of a birthday.  Gifts and cards are collected there.  Birthday person gets to choose dinner.  Pretty standard.  But we have one odd thing.  When dd's first birthday came around, she was not able to eat grains (long story).  So traditional cake was out of the question.  But we still wanted the whole baby-with-cake experience (and photos, of course!).  Being a late summer birthday, I made a layer "cake" out of seedless watermelon.  I cut out two round cake-sized slabs.  Then used freshly whipped cream as the frosting with berries to decorate.  It was so cute, and tasty, and light, we decided to make that her cake every year.  Still going strong into adulthood!  None of us are big cake fans and find most desserts way too filling and sweet so this is a nice alternative.  

[alisoncooks]

Helium balloons on the dining room chair when they wake up. (3 out of 4 in our family have June birthdays, so for a few weeks every summer our kitchen is full of bday balloons!)

Choice of dinner out. Maybe small gift. This year both kids have “milestone” bdays: 16 and 18. So one is getting concert tickets and one is getting a trip to see her boyfriend. 

[Hen]

my kids are grown now, but when they were young, we varied what we did for birthdays, but it was usually small and family-centered. They usually got to pick a lunch or dinner out with a parent.  What stands out to me though, is the 4 kids, among themselves, came up with a tradition that the birthday kid got to sit in the front passenger seat for a whole week.  They had, among themselves also, come up with a rotating system of who sits up front. I stayed out of it, unless there was an argument, and then, no one got to sit up front. 🤣

[QueenCat]

Mine are now adults. For the one still living with us, he picks where we eat dinner and gets gifts. The older lives far away. We send him a restaurant gift card to replace the meal out, along with his gifts. Gifts for both are a variety of gift cards and typically technology. 

When they were young... They chose all the meals for the day, with breakfast & dinner typically eaten out. Bigger parties until they were 10-11ish. Sometimes at home, sometimes in places like the bowling alley. From that point on, it was 4-5 friends, going & doing something fun.