This Is for Anyone Who Has a Birthday Close to Christmas
Some pretty good advice — just for you.
(Originally published in The Ethel)
In my youth, we had already been out of school for a week by the time my birthday arrived on Dec. 28. Very few friends were around. Most of them were busy with their families or away on vacation.
When it was my big day, Christmas and Chanukah had just come and gone. Mom handed me a gift — a doll, a dress or a toy. More often than not, it was unwrapped. She announced, “This is both your birthday and Chanukah gift.”
Even though this happened each birthday, it continued to hurt. I watched my brothers, both older and born in October, receive separate presents.
“Youth are sensitive to the ways that they are treated by their parents and compare their treatment to their brothers and sisters. They sense these differences as early as a few months to a few years,” says Shawn Whiteman, professor of Human Development and Family Studies and associate dean at Utah State University.
Comparing how I was treated to my brothers was — and still is — an ongoing theme in my life, even at age 66.
One common birthday tradition we had for everyone in the family was having Carvel ice cream cake. One birthday really…