One problem with being born really soon after Christmas

I was born 9 days after Christmas. "What a wonderful time to be born!" you might be thinking. I would agree. Except for one thing that always bugged me when I was growing up:

If you are born soon after Christmas it means your birthday gets blurred into the overwhelmingly expensive holiday gift-giving season. Your birthday falls in the season when people tend to have the least disposible income. Basically you get the short shrift when it comes to the birthday present department. Instead you hear things like "Your christmas present is a double present this year!"

In retrospect, I don't care very much about presents any more. I work, and don't need any more Lego products. One wonderful thing about being born soon after Christmas is that even if you live far from your family, you can spend your birthday with them.

Try 3 days after. Talk about getting overlooked...

But seriously, my biggest beef over the years was always that I would spend year after year watching all of my friends have these parties and celebrations but my birthday was always during the holiday break from school. Everyone was traveling so I couldn't have a party and there was never a treat day in class... Then in college we'd all go out for everyone's birthday - except mine cause we would all be home for the holidays.

I have always grown up thinking birthday parties were something other people have.

I was born two days after Christmas, but I don't remember ever feeling like I was getting ripped off.

The one thing I do remember is, every time I'd tell someone my birthday, they'd reply, "Awwwwwww, that's too bad, you must get less birthday presents."

My not feeling ripped off might be a result of my parents following a particular routine every year around that season:

As soon as we got our Christmas tree, they'd start putting presents under it. Some for me, some for other family members. But my presents were all labeled either XMAS or BDAY. I could clearly see that I had more presents than everyone else.

On Christmas day, we each took turns opening presents until all the presents were gone. Or in my case, until all the presents labeled XMAS were gone. All the ones labeled BDAY had to remain under the tree to torture me for two more days. Since my birthday was always treated as a big deal like this, I never felt left out.

It's possible that (being young and bad at math) I was getting a greater number of presents but they were worth about as much as everyone else's. I have no way of giving you an objective dollar amount. I can only say that it felt like I was getting a fair deal.

I was born on Christmas, so perhaps I don't fit into this node, but I'd rather not be all alone in a new one. My parents always let us kids open our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, and then come Christmas Day, everybody but me would be done. Then I'd get Christmas all to myself, as far as the present-opening process went.

The biggest pain in the ass has already been mentioned a couple of times. Nobody but NOBODY can party with you when your birthday is on Christmas but your family. My 21st birthday was a blast... as I recall, my celebratory binge drinking consisted of a Southern Comfort and Coke right before dinner, sitting by myself at the bar in the kitchen while everyone else bustled around making food. At least I was at a bar, I guess. Whoopee.

My advice? Whatever you do, don't get born on Christmas. Wisdom for the ages, that is.

Comets, omens, supernatural events, schizophrenia, the difficuties of changing accepted social and political structures and being nailed to a large chunk of wood before you hit 40 may also cause slight mental anguish...