35
votes
How do you celebrate your birthday?
There's nothing I enjoy more than waking up late and going through the day without checking the time, and I make a point to do that for myself every year for my birthday. What sort of gifts do you give to yourself to celebrate the day?
I'll go against the general Tildes flow - I like a party. I recently started to realize that I always felt like I wasn't "supposed" to enjoy getting drunk and partying because that's not what thoughtful people enjoy, but you know what? I do.
So with that realization came a desire to throw a blowout party for my birthday, and we've done that the last couple years.
I gotta say, a well-funded house party full of late-20s to 30s semi-responsible adults can be a banger with the right crowd.
There's nothing like a good house party - especially one that wraps up in time for the host to get some sleep!
See, this would be amazing! I'd love throwing parties. I'd enjoy hosting parties. But too many people unfortunately refuse to leave.
I don't know if it's just me an my circle of friends and family. And it's not just parties, but even simple get togethers.
When I go to other people's houses, I don't stay too long. I can read in between lines and I can get hints when it may be time for me to leave.
Meanwhile, people come over to my house and it's been six gd hours and they're still here. Like dude, the game was over two hours ago, we polished all the snacks and drinks, all the dishes have been put away and washed at this point, and you're still here?
I had a relative come by last weekend. His girlfriend moved to our city after graduating from a phd program in another state and now that she's moved to our town, she's been visiting her boyfriends friends and family. So, the two of them came by my house for dinner. They got here at 5, we had drinks, dinner, hung out after dinner, another couple of friends came by, those friends left, at this point, it's 11:30 and I can't keep my eyes open and these two are still here talking like the day just began. Like, 6 and a half hours at someone's house and it still hasn't crossed your mind that maybe it's time to leave.
And things like this happen virtually every time people come over, and that's why I dislike having people over.
Is it a cultural thing not to just ask them to leave? I communicate fairly directly that I want to go to sleep and kick them out, I think it's a reasonable thing to do.
A family friend once hosted a giant house party. At some point in the night, he disappeared for a moment. He came back wearing a bath robe and brushing his teeth, walking around to each chatting group until the party got the message. Everyone had a good laugh and left shortly after.
I also love a good house party! I just wish I could get anyone to show up to mine.
I used to be able to get a good 10-15 people together but the past couple years everyone I know has some other obligation and cant attend.
My favourite was when my friend hosted a dnd themed party for their 30th, then played rounds of short dnd in groups. What a fun weekend!
I don't, actually. I haven't celebrated my birthday since I was... 13...ish? I haven't received almost any gifts or "treated myself" to anything for my birthday since then.
All things considered I practically don't have a birthday, as I make an effort to not tell anyone about when it is, even if they directly ask in a pushy way.
Only people in my life who know my birthday are my parents, my partner, and... HR. And I certainly don't want any of them to tell me any happy birthdays either.
I just had my birthday, and it was a HUGE bash! I did the same thing I did last year and booked 7hrs of music at our town bar (we only have one), and booked all my musician friends. 3 hours of a variety show consisting of 20min sets. An hour of my band, and then three hours of a full band.
I dressed up WILD, had a friend design my outfit. And the whole town brought potluck. It was AWESOME. Had to be over 200 people in and out all day and night, most of whom I know. Partied and drank and danced and made music.
Weather was perfection. Not too hot for May (may is one of the hottest months in the desert), and it even rained a bit, which is always celebrated and considered very good luck. After the bar closed, we all went to the porch and jammed some more.
Next year I'll do the same, but I think I'll add a pre party brunch/lunch at my buddies place who has a private venue up the hill before we go full on show at the bar again. I've turned my bday into a mini local festival and I couldn't be happier with the result!
That sounds awesome! Happy late birthday, I'm glad it came together so well!
I mostly always just want peace, no party, no hub-bub, just a little time that isn't filled with the daily chaos :)
My wife feels like she's not doing anything for me though so she feels compelled to make up a cake or invite some family over and I go along with it because it makes her happy but if it were truly up to me I'd become a ghost to the world for 24 hours :)
A nice meal mostly. My partner will cook a ridiculously sized ribeye steak for me, or we'll go somewhere, or I'll go solo.
I just vibe.
I hide in a cave without cellphone reception and check for offerings by the entrance every hour or so.
Okay, not a cave but my bedroom. Everything else is pretty spot on.
I don't do anything crazy, but I usually try to treat myself. At my last job, we got our birthdays off as a personal holiday. So I just lay about at home, play games, nap, whichever. But where I currently work, that's not a thing. So this year, since my birthday fell in the middle of the week, I worked on my birthday. And I didn't tell anyone that it was my birthday.
But the previous weekend, I did take a long a weekend and went out of town. Some solo travel. Not super far; just went to another city in my state a few hrs away that I hadn't been to, but that was my birthday treat to myself. Typically, however, I'll buy myself a gift. Something a little pricier. Last year, I got myself a new Macbook Pro. Traditionally my birthday month is when I upgrade my phone, as my present to myself. Though that's only every 3-4yrs.
As far as celebrating with friends and family? Very very rarely. If I'm with family and they want to take me out to dinner, OK, I'm down. I'll pick a place. But I'm not gonna insist upon tit.
I normally don't beyond maybe getting a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. A couple of friends and I gift each other games on steam for our birthdays, but it is normally very casual and not more than $30.
This past year was the first time I really tried to celebrate, because it was my 30th. I traveled internationally for the first time in my life and had an 11 day trip in Japan. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done, so I'm considering making travel a yearly tradition. Only thing that sucks is that my birthday is in the winter, so a lot of places have terrible weather. My Japan trip wasn't actually on my birthday because of this.
Sounds like you're travelling to the southern hemisphere next time!
Since college I've been on the no-party side of things, but last year my friends organized for me a pizza crawl - like a bar crawl but instead of bars you hit pizzarias (drinking optional). I absolutely loved it - all the boisterousness of a party, but getting to move around and bike between spots, as well as all the good pizza, made for a very enjoyable experience. Highly recommend!
I'm lucky to have an extended group of friends that I see regularly and a close family.
These last years, I always have a small get-together with my friends (like we go to a good restaurant and play boardgames after) and another one with my family when I can see them.
That's about it. I never expect nor receive any gifts and haven't for the last ~10 years. Sometimes a friend or family member will get me a gift, like a letter or a small gift, but it's very rare.
I often don’t make a big deal of my birthday, but usually really enjoy it when I do. It gives a good excuse to see friends and let friends meet your other friends that they don’t know. Overall an excuse to a socialise is always good.
Having said that, as an adult I often feel a bit silly for trying to organise a birthday party (beyond family) as it feels a bit childish? Which is a shame as I enjoy going to other peoples birthday parties.
I like to bake a treat to take to work. I'm not really into celebrations, but I don't mind going out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants
As a middle-aged manchild I celebrate in three simultaneous ways:
But that's how I celebrate every other day!
Yeah but what about your birthday?
In my family, our tradition is that the birthday person chooses a cake to order, and the place we all go to eat out at. So I did that. And since my birthday fell on a Friday this year, I took a vacation day and made it a three day weekend. It was wonderful to sleep in, play some video games, and just take things easy while the kids were at school.
(I'd already got myself a nice, fancy new keyboard the month before, so that was kind of my early present to myself.)
I write my resolutions on my birthday. It makes them feel a lot more personal and basically removes everything shitty about New Years resolutions.
This is one of my favorite things I’ve figured out about life: I don’t care about my birthday in the least but I learned long ago to make a VERY big deal of it.
What that means is that I realized there are enough people who do celebrate their birthdays that I could claim it as a special holiday, the bigger the better. And on every “big” birthday I can take off work for days or weeks and vanish “because my birthday is so important to me.”
So for my 30th birthday I took off 4 weeks and traveled from Carlsbad Caverns to Brice Canyon and Zion. For my 40th we went to China for two weeks and climbed Huangshan with my 4 year old daughter on my shoulders. And when I turned 50 I took a month to hike the breadth of Ireland.
If these were normal trips I wouldn’t get so much love and support. But because I’m known for “really caring about my birthday” people help me get the funds and the time off to make it work.
My friend just turned 50. He wasn’t going to make a big deal of it until I told him my approach. Then he told everyone what a big deal it is to him and someone donated a suite at Disneyland and next thing he knew he was hosting a rager in the center of the park and having the time of his life.
Make it important and people will help.
Meh I usually don't.
Don't usually do much on the day itself and try to take it easy. I like parties and socializing, but I don't care to be the center of attention.
This year (41! Can't believe that), I think I might ask my wife to take me out to a special breakfast. Then a nice walk with her would be great. After that? It would be nice to have someone cook or provide dinner for me (I cook every night), then maybe my friend could come over, we could drink a bunch of beer and play my favorite wargame and my wife would put both the kids to bed. Then I'd sleep terribly because I was drunk, so maybe not? Though I often sleep terribly anyway.
What amusingly coincidental timing!
I was just visiting my dad and stepmom earlier today to (belatedly and having re-scheduled) celebrate my recent birthday.
We had some high quality food as takeout from the best restaurant in town, I helped out with some chores we had been looking at me taking care of for the past few months (some light electrical work, replacing a dimmer switch and an outlet), putting up a few extra boards at the top of their firewood hutch in the backyard, and trying (and, embarrassingly for my decade plus of IT background) failing to fix what seemed like a simple technical issue with my dads Macintosh.
Spent some time petting their cats.
Then getting sent home with a goody bag of leftovers and a couple loaves of home made Challah.
I took my birthday off work this year (it's coming up). It's not something I go out of my way to do, but it just happened to work well with other vacation stuff. I'm hoping to take myself on a little date and go get a favorite drink at a café that is a little further away than it used to be (we moved) and go to the bookstore in the same shopping area. And go for some walks in areas that I like. And probably go out to dinner (a place we like, nothing too fancy) with my partner and maybe have dessert. Low key, doing stuff I enjoy, just having a nice day.
My birthday is actually tomorrow! I usually work (I'm a waitress) and if there's a guest who is also celebrating a birthday (and there always is) and they're 21 or older, I buy them a shot of Jeppson's Malört. That's my little birthday treat to myself. I only tell my victim and whoever they're out with. Anyone I'd care to have wish me a happy birthday already knows and it means more if I didn't remind them.
I also like to eat my favorite goods, which are mostly spinach-filled pastries.
Mr. Tired and I almost always go to Disneyland for my birthday. It's been an annual tradition for me since I was in high school (though not on purpose) and it's just something we've kept up.
This year we went early for reasons, so I also got a tattoo on my birthday and had a tea party with my friends.
With chocolate cake of course! As long as there is cake, I'm quite happy, even if it's a bit delayed. Given I can make it myself rather easily, it would be hard to ruin my birthday.
Usually I visit my mother for dinner on the nearest weekend and she will cook whatever I ask for (within reason), including a cake for desert. Otherwise there's nothing special, usually just go about my day like normal.
I've never really been big on birthday celebration and parties are just a "nope". I'm the type to show up to a party and either disappear shortly after, zone out or latch onto someone I know that makes a good focus to help me ignore the crowd. The idea of having one where I'm the center of it all sounds like torture. If someone were to throw a party for me, the only way for it not to go poorly would be to disguise it as someone else's party or a party for another reason (i.e. "randomly" throwing a BBQ that day).
My last birthday was just a few weeks ago. My husband asked me what we should do for dinner, hinting that we should go somewhere special. I told him I wasn't really feeling it so he bought me a grocery store cake instead.
It was a pretty good grocery store cake, though.
I didn't really enjoy the feeling of being let down that happened from people not being able to make it for any kind of party, with a particular low point in my early 20s around that.
So for a while I used it as an excuse to travel within Europe, visiting places like Berlin & Warsaw, eventually getting out to Vancouver for my 30th as an extra level of treat.
Since then, and since covid it's been more low key little day/weekend trips within the UK.
One thing that has been consistent over the last decade plus though, I make a point of going out for a nice breakfast somewhere.
It varies. This year I went to the aquarium with some friends, last year I organized a pizza-tasting party to judge a bunch of pizza joints in my area (I got a pepperoni from a dozen places for everyone to grade, then made a spreadsheet to compare scores and the cost/area. Costco is the best party pizza, statistically, averaging a 6.1/10 while costing only $0.04/inch^2) and previously I've dragged friends to a pinball arcade, made me-themed bar trivia with a custom geoguessr map, and found interesting restaurants to eat at.
My birthday is only sometimes a "party" and the preferred crowd is pretty small (pizza party had 15 for more data) but I always take the excuse to do something my way.
My wife asks me what I want to do, and that's what we do.
But whatever it is, we do it together.
The same goes for her birthdays. (Which almost always end up being going to Disney and staying at a disney hotel)
2 years ago, it was just staying at home ordering pizza and gaming together the entire day with a cake at the end.
Last year, we took a small trip to a small village in the middle of nowhere because the town is famous for their 'Youkai' statues, called the "Youkai town". (We live in Japan) I love Japanese mythology and it was an amazing day for me. My wife is not very much into it, but she joined me and ended up having a blast.
This year,, not sure yet. I am thinking of asking to go to up north to the Dinosaur fossil town.