A child's two favorite times of the year are usually their birthday and Christmas. It is a time when they can spend time with family, be spoiled with lots of presents, do fun activities, and eat a bunch of really good food. For more then half of the population these times are spread out from one another. They will never know the struggle of compacting two big events in their lives into one. For others, like myself, these two events are stacked one on top of the other and lead to a real rip-off in some of the celebration.
It was not always like this. I remember when I was younger that almost all my friends and family tried to make the two events separated from one another. No one would come to my birthday party and hand me a gift while also telling me that it was also my Christmas gift... which is two weeks away. I would always have those two special events to look forward to like every other little kid does. It was not until I was around twelve or thirteen that this began to change. It seemed like almost overnight things began to shift. Once two very separate events became one compacted thing. I would have people at my birthday saying that my present was a double whammy for Christmas as well or vise versa. The first few years it really hit me the most. I was let down that people seemed to disregard one of my most cherished times of the year. Not only that but it was the realization that I was getting older. My brother has it even worse than I do with his birthday being the day after Christmas, so he's really never had the opportunity to have two separate days at all. I always saw people doing this double event gifting to him and thought "HA at least they don't do that to me!" And I guess karma heard me because it happened. They started doing to it to me as well.
To be completely honest it took me awhile before I got use to it and really understood why people did it. Presents are expensive! Looking back at it I am actually surprised my family and friends went as long as they did without combining the two days. Now being a young adult and having to buy birthday and Christmas presents for the people in my life I can see why people go for the combined route. Though I must play devils advicate for those of us who are cursed with a close to the holidays birthday. Yes, it is cheaper to make one present a combined gift and yes I understand money is tight for a lot of people but I have a found a solution. To keep the two special events separated from one another I suggested smaller gifts that you can spread out. I am not looking for a pony to unwrap on both my birthday and Christmas morning. A few simple Dollar Store gifts combined with a decently priced gift spread out between the two days would do just fine. What it really comes down to has nothing to do with the presents really at all. But rather we holiday birthday kids are looking for the fact that you are thinking of us on both days, and not just trying to get your obligations out of the way.
So with the holiday season almost right at our front door remember to try and not rip-off your holiday birthday friends and show them that you think of them on both special events and not just one!
