How do you celebrate your birthday?

Hey people! Today is my birthday, so I wanted to make a thread like this.

How do you celebrate your birthday? Do you still celebrate it? When did you stopped celebrating it?

What are some interesting b-day traditions in certain parts of the worlds? 

Oh, happy birthday Dragonsky!! I hope you're enjoying so far :tada:

Now for your question . . . You know how when we get old our birthdays seem to be just like any other day hahaha. I'm looking forward more to my children's birthdays. 

Happy birthday. For me it is important to always have cake and blow the candles because for me that light from the candles represent life. It represents celebrating one more year good or bad, but you are still here with your love ones. Our tradition is that we always buy some decorations at the dollar store and we have cake and sing the happy birthday song in English and Spanish, even though we don't do parties for my husband or me (we save those for the kids), I like to include my kids on decorating and baking to show them the importance of celebrating our birthdays.

Happy birthday!! For me is getting together, birthdays are days I get to see people I care and that I have not been able to see. So I like to spend it with my family and then get together with my friends. Last year I sliced (more like butchered) my cake like a samurai, I could make this a tradition xD

The older I get, the simpler the celebration. Of course, as a kid, we all like to have some surprise parties and what not . But as I grow older, late night dinner, movie, stroll at the park, or even chilling at home would be considered fun.  

I love to work even on my birthday. A coffee or alone time will do.

I smile all through the day especially replaying messages from from friends and loved ones. I do this 'smiling' at work and on my way to and fro.

I don't. :) As a child it was because my birthday's on New Year's Day so my parent's bundles my party with the New Year feast so it's never really just for me. As an adult, it's because I don't feel like getting a year older is a cause for celebration. :)

Happy Birthday!!!:hugging_face::hugging_face:

I personally don't celebrate birthdays. I like to celebrate successful days and moments instead.  

Alex.M wrote:

Happy Birthday!!!:hugging_face::hugging_face:
I personally don't celebrate birthdays. I like to celebrate successful days and moments instead.

Same here. We celebrate the dumbest things in my family -- We Finished Laundry Day, Gaming Saturdays -- but we don't do anything big or special for birthdays except when it's for our kids. And even then it's nothing grand. Just some food and gifts. 

I guess it's a way to not over indulge them. Truth is once the kids become teenagers, birthdays will become less of big parties and more of good wishes and small gifts.

Since it's on Valentine's day, I usually just stay in, eat a lot of chocolate and watch my favorite movie or cuddle with my favorite Nora Roberts book The fake love people show on that day makes me sick. Why wait till a particular day to make a bogus show of love?

Oghenekevwe wrote:

Since it's on Valentine's day, I usually just stay in, eat a lot of chocolate and watch my favorite movie or cuddle with my favorite Nora Roberts book The fake love people show on that day makes me sick. Why wait till a particular day to make a bogus show of love?

As a child, I hated that my birthday falls on a holiday. Makes my birthday more like a sideshow to the holiday celebration. 

I used to go to restaurant with my mother and younger sis. Afterwards, I'll buy something like jeans/bag/sandal etc. as a simple reward for myself. :)

ikaymoreno wrote:

Oghenekevwe wrote:

Since it's on Valentine's day, I usually just stay in, eat a lot of chocolate and watch my favorite movie or cuddle with my favorite Nora Roberts book The fake love people show on that day makes me sick. Why wait till a particular day to make a bogus show of love?

As a child, I hated that my birthday falls on a holiday. Makes my birthday more like a sideshow to the holiday celebration.

My point exactly!

Never had a birthday cake until I reached 18. Haha! It's my simple bday wish during that time. 

When I was still celebrating it many, many years ago, it sometimes was about small parties with maybe five to ten persons. Or family only.

Later, I ceased to do it. Several reasons. Because of my tendency towards (some) minimalism, preferring not to "celebrate myself", and a few others.

ikaymoreno wrote:

As an adult, it's because I don't feel like getting a year older is a cause for celebration. :)

I can relate. 

As someone who makes his observations on society, sub-cultures, etc., and also reads, well, quite a lot about them, this thread caused an interesting impact on me. Because sometimes, I was inclined to thinking of birthday celebrations as something the vast majority of people surely is doing. Although I am not having any parties myself, as I also said in my previous post. 

But reading this thread additionally reminded me of something. There are many different movements, sub-cultures, or whatever you call them. And even if some ideas are very popular, one couldn't make premature generalizations like, "most people in the world fully appreciate them", because of the big difference between "many" and "most".

I do! Always does but not in a grand fashion way! Just a simple dinner with my family. Though I'm already in my late 20s, I still get excited when I have my birthday cake. Haha But with my kids now, I'm more excited for them because they get so happy whenever we celebrate birthdays.