Birthdays Near Christmas

Anybody have a birthday near the holidays? What were your experiences growing up? Or now? Did you get separate gifts/parties/acknowledgements or one combined present? I've heard from some December babies who complained their birthday was overlooked and/or they got one combined gift that was no better than anybody else's standard Christmas gift.

Older DD's birthday is December 19. We've always been careful to have a separate celebration for her plus birthday specific gifts. She will be 29 next week, on a Wednesday, so we don't always celebrate on her birthday itself anymore, but close to it. We've having it on Friday the 21st.

Growing up there were five birthdays near Christmas in my extended family. We'd all gather at my grandmother's house on the Saturday or Sunday before Christmas for a birthday party for those five, and then again on Christmas Day.
My sister's birthday is Dec 17.

Because my mother's father's birthday was Dec 24, he always just got one present ("happy birthday & merry christmas!") every year. My parents decided that my sister wouldn't get caught in that.

Their solution was to never (and I mean NEVER) put up any Christmas decorations until the 18th of December. We'd have my sister's birthday with party/presents on her birthday, then move on to Christmas preparations.
 
Birthday tomorrow for my youngest. I don't see the problem with keeping birthday and Christmas separate this early. I can see it once you hit December 20th. Still 2 weeks away when the birthday is on the 15th. Our ritual when she was younger was to drive around after cake and presents and look at the Christmas lights.

Husband's birthday is 12/25. He said growing up he always got the shaft when it came to presents because people combine them. I give him two separate gifts and usually get him a cake but we still celebrate his birthday on the 25th.
That was what my Dad said also, 12/25 birthday. He always got combined gifts growing up.

My cousin's birthday was 12/26. Went to Grandma's for Christmas every year and birthday cake was always dessert. When my cousin was 4 or 5, Dad bent down and smelled the cake. "Hey Scotty, did you smell the cake?" After that, every year, "Hey Uncle Bob, did you smell the cake?" with a big grin on his face and Dad let him smash his face down into a piece of cake. Went on every year after that until Dad passed way too early.
 
In our family we have 18 year old DS birthday on 12/12, almost 17 year old DS on 12/25, and DH on 1/2.

For the first 10 years after the kids were born we has a combined birthday party somewhere between 12/12 and 12/25. After that we started doing dinner and a movie on each kids actual birthday. So on Christmas we do Christmas in the morning, and DS Birthday celebration in the late afternoon or evening. We have a limited selection of restaurants open Christmas Day. Usually a few close family members come along. We stopped friends parties once they got to middle school.

We have never done a combined birthday/Christmas gift for the boys. I'm super organized with my list of birthday gift/ Christmas from us/ Christmas from Santa/ stocking stuffers. Lol. A separate list for each kid. For DH we do combined gifts sometimes. He doesn't mind. We really focus on the kids. We never wrap birthday gifts in Christmas paper! According to DH that's a big no no! This year was the first year we couldn't take DS 18 out on his birthday because he was away at college. He will be home tonight! So we will go out tomorrow.

For DH we just eat out. It's the day after New Years, and everyone, including him, seems to be tired of sweets and parties. My birthday is in June, and usually falls when the kids are at camp so we celebrate Father's Day and my birthday with dinner out on a weekend before or after camp.
 
Mine is December 15 and growing up I got a ton of "two for one" presents from extended family/friends of family. The single gift always seemed a bit bigger than two separate gifts would have been, so I didn't think it was a big deal. It frustrated my mom on the other hand.

My husband is the worst offender as far as I'm concerned. He often neglects my birthday (it's so close to Christmas! It's hard to shop with the crowds!). But his mid summer birthday must be recognized with a full dog and pony show. Yep, it was another last minute card and small gift card gift for me this morning. I realized this would be a trend a year or two into our marriage and started buying myself bday gifts.
 


My birthday is the first week of December---I always disliked how no one had time to come to birthday parties and relatives usually gave a combined gift (which was about the same level as what my cousins got for jsut Christmas, then they'd get another on birthdays) and said I would never have kids with December birthdays....you know what they say about never saing never . . .
Both of my kids are Christmas week!

My brother and sister in law, who are twins, share my birthday and my mother in law and her twin are the 18th of December---so there is a lot of celebrating going on in our family in December.

My youngest usually still had school on his birthday and given that his older sibling was ALWAYS out, that annoyed him, but such is life. Otherwise, it was rough when they were young getting people to attend parties, but the family was always great about not combining gifts (probably becuase so many of us grew up with that) and now we celebrate with dinner out and a fun activity as a family (this year both picked out escape rooms).
 
My birthday is Dec. 6. My parents would give me birthday gifts but I didn't have parties when I was in elementary school because the holidays were too busy. My oldest grandson was born on Dec. 29 (also my Dad's birthday). He will have his second birthday this year and it will be a separate party and separate gifts from Christmas. I am sure my DS and DDIL will make sure it stays this way.
 


A nephew and niece have birthdays on Dec 5th, another niece on Dec 19. Growing up everyone bought birthday gifts while Christmas shopping, so they never missed out. My daughters were born Jan 3rd. For some reason, they always seemed to get the short end of the stick. I guess everyone figured they'd hit the after Christmas sales, rather then buying early, and then never found anything the girls actually wanted in stock.
 
My cousin has a December birthday. She hated it when she was a kid because of the combo gifts. She was jealous of me and her brother since our birthdays weren’t in December. I have 3 nieces with December birthdays so I try and do separate gifts but this year one of the mom’s said to get gift cards and combine the bday and Xmas.
 
My ds18 birthday is Dec 30. We have never combined Christmas with his bday. Its a separate celebration and separate gifts. His grandparents and aunts/uncles have always given him separate gifts as well. We always wanted to make sure that he never felt slighted for having a bday in Dec. and in between 2 holidays. It could be somewhat difficult to get kids to come to his party because they were either out of town or busy but we would adjust the date to whatever worked so that his friends could come.
 
I have a friend who’s son was born on Christmas. Christmas morning he gets both Christmas gifts and birthday gifts as well as a cake with their family only. She then lets him pick any other day of the year (he usually picks sometime in the summer from the pictures I have seen) to have a Birthday party with all his friends.
 
My oldests birthday is Jan. 9th (so close but not too close) and I never combined gifts (and neither did anyone else who gave her gifts). The biggest things for me was figuring out gifts to give her for her birthday so close after Christmas.
 
My birthday is December 30. It's that lazy week when everyone is partied-out from Christmas and getting ready for New Year's Eve. My sister's birthday is only a week later on January 6. Our mom is very list-driven when it comes to buying gifts. She starts asking for Christmas lists on Thanksgiving. Every year, without fail, the minute we finish opening our Christmas gifts she says, "Girls! I need birthday lists!" So basically I look around and figure out what I still want or need and give her a list. I've tried saying I don't need anything else, but she insists. Our brother's birthday is at the end of June, right in the middle of the year when everyone is ready for a party! He lucked out.
 
My mom was a New Years baby. I made the mistake of wrapping her gift in Christmas paper once. It only took one time to learn to only do it once!

I don't think I've ever gotten a birthday gift that wasn't wrapped in Christmas paper! Luckily, it never bothered me.
 
My birthday is Christmas week. It never bothered me. When I was younger I had cake with dinner just like everyone else in my family on their birthday. So, no difference to be upset about.
I got some combo gifts, and didn't care because they were nicer gifts.
The only "complaint" I ever had about my birthday was that I had an overwhelming amount of winter clothes, and never enough summer clothes, lol.
 
My birthday is Jan 7th and I never got anything growing up and now as an adult, it rarely gets acknowledged. I usually get a Happy Birthday text from family members about 5 days later. I think people are just exhausted since one week it’s Christmas, the next it’s New Years and then the next it’s my birthday. It doesn’t bother me much since it’s always been that way. I think the only thing that ever bothered me about it is my parents made a huge deal out of my sister’s birthday (Dec 6th) since it was before Christmas.
 
My granddaughter is Dec. 3rd so just far enough from Thanksgiving (she was due on Thanksgiving) and Christmas that we never have an issue there.

A nephew is Dec. 19th and he had his party yesterday. My brother and SIL are very good at treating it as a birthday. We just have to remind my parents not to schedule a Santa and Mrs. Claus party that day. My dad is in demand for charity events as Santa.

My daughter was due Christmas Day but arrived 10 days late on January 4th. While I was pregnant and as she grew up I told everyone that there would be NO combination gifts. For her friends we always had a 1/2 year party. They all loved that as we usually had it at our swim club.

My grandson is mid January so usually not an issue with him.
 
DS33's birthday is just after Christmas. We always had a separate celebration and when he was young, we would have a family dinner on his birthday and I would delay a party a week or so until the school break was over.

I always made sure to wrap gifts in birthday paper rather than leftover Christmas paper but you can't control others so he always had a few in leftover Christmas wrap. I also would reserve some special gift idea to be sure that his birthday wasn't anti-climatic.

As an adult, though, he sometimes enjoys getting a bigger Christmas gift since I'm willing to combine my budget. He's getting a new computer for Christmas. It's much more than we budget for our adult kids for Christmas but it works since we can combine his birthday budget.

I agree with someone upthread that it kind of depends on the birthday person. DS doesn't like a fuss so I don't think he ever cared much. DD22, on the other hand, loves her birthday and a big fuss so she would have hated it around the holidays.
 
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My birthday is tomorrow (Dec. 18) and I always had a birthday party though I don't think I ever had a cake that didn't have Santa or a snowman on it. I only got shorted on gifts a couple of times until my mom started giving the cousins, who had birthdays throughout the year, one gift with a tag that said Happy Birthday & Merry Christmas. When Christmas came around and they got nothing else, their parents caught on & I started getting separate gifts.
 
My grandmother's birthday was Christmas Eve. Growing up we would see that set of grandparents on Christmas Eve, and the other on Christmas Day. She never wanted the Christmas Eve meal to resemble a traditional Christmas dinner, so we always got Chinese food. We still have Chinese food every year on Christmas Eve. My mom made the mistake of giving her a combination gift once - never again. From then on it was always separate gift in birthday paper. I learned from that and make sure that my nephew (Dec 17 birthday) always gets a separate gift.
 

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