Ah birthdays, what a wonderful time. And this is mostly true for all days of the year.
Mostly.
If you are born on a holiday the struggle is unbelievably real.
First of all, booking restaurants is a pain in the a$$. My birthday is on Valentine’s Day and believe me when I say that restaurants are booked up to a month in advance, if not more.
All I wanted to do was have a nice dinner with my friends. As luck would have it, a non-mainstream restaurant had some open space and I was ecstatic.
Next, people forget. Especially if you are born on Feb. 14. Everyone remembers the holiday and not your birth — you know, the reason you are even their “friend.”
Also, people are sometimes out of town for holidays like Christmas. So, if you are celebrating and do find a place that you and your friends can go to, there is a big chance that they won’t be able to come anyway. And as you can imagine, people generally do have other plans (not my friends though, they are amazing and make me feel exceptionally special by rearranging and cancelling plans for me).
One comment I get quite frequently is that I should be receiving double the presents.
When I was younger I wondered if everyone I knew was alright because as a child, who gets presents on Valentine’s Day? Now, however, I will never say no to extra presents, but I do not expect them.
Can you imagine being born on Halloween?
Everyone looks scary and all hell breaks loose — as a kid, wouldn’t that be traumatic?
It would be pretty easy to have costume parties, but it would also get to the point where you would just want a normal birthday.
Not a real holiday, but I can’t even begin to imagine the pain of being born on April Fool’s Day.
I do think, though, that being born on St. Patrick’s Day must be pretty darn nice, all the free drinks you can get your hands on.
Other birthdays that would probably be a pain to have would be a general first day of school date, since most people dread that day. Chances are that if you are not in a K-12, school people won’t know you in your new school and no one will remember. And what if you start a new school — you would have no friends to celebrate your big day with and you would have the jitters of being in a new place. For anyone that has fallen victim to this — I am so very sorry.
Having your birthday on the last day of school would be pretty awesome if you have the summer off and are planning awesome adventures.
One thing to keep in mind is that extra presents are always okay — no one minds this. But please, whatever you do, try and remember that if you have a friend who’s birthday is on a holiday (real or not) they are still people and would like their special day to be just as important as anyone else’s.
Rameesha Qazi
5B, Honours English Literature
