My kids both have fall birthdays so we have moved through what I refer to as “the birthday season.”
When they were toddlers I started a tradition to begin celebrating as soon as they wake.
Because the party or dinner or whatever the official celebration is for that particular year is after school or at least later in the day, the “birthday book” is a wrapped gift they don’t have to wait to open.
Years ago I had a little bookcase in my bedroom that I would put the wrapped birthday book on so it was ready for early the next morning. When I moved this piece of furniture out at one point, and my daughter maybe 6? at the time asked on her birthday eve, “But where will you put the birthday book?” So I still prop her birthday book against the wall where that bookcase used to be.
During the teenage years, school mornings are not always friendly. I stay out of her way. This year on her birthday I was downstairs when I heard “Can I open this?”
My son (friendlier on school mornings) does not search the book out so I have to approach him and present it but he always seems happy to open.
For both I always sign inside, “Happy Xth birthday, Love, Mom and Dad.” The three of us laugh because dad really has no clue about what the birthday book is until that point (and maybe not even then as he is doing his own thing in the mornings) but I would feel badly leaving him out.
Over the years I have had hits and misses with the books I give. Some have become favorites, and some I’ve had to pull out of the the donation pile. Because I’m not donating a book that says, “Happy Xth birthday” – that just seems like it would be sad for someone to see (and for me too).
But now I realize it’s the tradition that’s important not necessarily picking the perfect book. And this year, my daughter’s book may have been a miss. I spent awhile researching what she may like, but she still hasn’t read it.
For my son I picked one of my own favorites. I have my own copy, which is actually from the shelves of my dad’s English classroom, but I wanted to give him his own, new copy. And I may also be a bit possessive about my favorite books!
It was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
This book’s message has stayed with me throughout my life. I have picked it up during harder times, a couple times to re-read but more often to skip to the dog-eared page at the end where the Savage claims the right to be unhappy.
Because in all the stress, disappointments, and tragedy of the world if we are still here, having birthdays, there is still beauty and hope. As the Savage says, “I claim them all.”