It seems that every last one of my friends is born in December. Before I had my kids I heard things like, “whatever you do, don’t have a baby in December.” Did I listen? No, of course not. So my dear Ms. Paloma is born smack dab on the Winter Solstice four days before Christmas.
When she was a baby, we tried to get away with celebrating her birthday the first week of December to give ourselves some breathing room. But now she’s 4 and knows everything about everything and there’s no getting around that December 21st is the real day.
The following are my suggestions for making your December baby feel loved happy and content and not JILTED by the fact that Christmas is just around the corner.
1) Celebrate it on the day. It is there day. It might be inconvenient and interfere with Xmas preparations but plan for it and celebrate like anyone else at any other time of year. This seemed to be the complaint of a majority of Christmas babies I know.
2) Don’t be cheap. Wrap Christmas babies gifts in BIRTHDAY paper, not holiday paper. Refrain from cheating with blue snowflake paper, red or green. It’ll be so tempting to do otherwise but it makes them mad and it cheats them.
3) Change of venue. It’s hard to celebrate a birthday with a Christmas tree in the background overshadowing just about everything. This year Ms. Paloma will turn 4 having a princess tea party at a nearby bed and breakfast that puts them on. At $12 bucks a head--it’s not cheap but at the same time a few girls and having the clean up somewhere else is an awesome trade off. And this one is down English tea style. No x-mas decorations looming in the background. This way. The child gets the pink and purple party and mom has just bought herself some time and energy.
4) No combining of presents. We know we have Christmas babies. Buy those presents in August and put them in a closet. My friends in their forties say when they were in their teens they’d lobby for one BIGGER present to combine the birthday and Christmas gift giving--usually to their benefit. But for little kids this just isn’t going to work.
5) Go with themes that suggest another season or something completely different from the holidays.
6) Have bigger kids parties for other occasions so that they’ll be fine with the small birthday.
We usually have a big Halloween party and School’s Out because we live in an all season area and my kids both have winter birthdays where they can’t really play inside with 12 other kids.
7) For older kids and adults plan out something exciting just for them during the winter break. I’ve written up gift certificates for activities to take place in that no man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s. I’ve used this time to take people to dinner, theatre, concerts--spend special time with your Christmas baby this week---but give them the card that says what you are going to do on the actual birthday.
8) Go tell all your family about this list and make them promise to treat the Christmas babies the same as the kids born in more ‘convenient’ times of year.
What do you do to make your December children not feel overshadowed by the holiday?
How to Celebrate those Christmas Babies
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Excellent points, but in the end, it all depends on the child.
There's always been a christmas tree in the background of my birthdays. It's never bothered me. As a kid, I remember my parents combined my 6th bday (12/11) with my brother's 9th bday(11/16) and we had a HUGE party. That was the only childhood bday I remember. It was on 12/6 (a Saturday) and I loved it because I could get presents earlier.
When I hit the teen years, I always asked for the bigger "combo" gift. That said, my parents always had a little something for me to open on my bday and xmas. Maybe I was just spoiled.
My mother-in-law's birthday is 12/25 and she HATES it. So this year she decided her bday was going to be the Friday after Thanksgiving. We went to the zoo and had a nice dinner. The day was totally devoted to her and she loved it. She plans to do the same thing next year.
Oh, and for the record, you can wrap my bday gift in xmas wrapping paper. I won't mind...but I will judge you just a little bit.
My brother, ten years younger than I, has a December 15th birthday. Close enough to make it annoying. UGH. What do I do? Go ahead and get pregnant with a December 15th due date. Thanks for the tips. I've been thinking of ways to make this birthday-Christmas thing manageable and special. Hopefully I have this kid today, cause the closer it gets to Christmas, the worse it gets.
This was very very helpful. My daughter was born 5 days after Christmas last year and I don't want to make any mistakes coming up. Thanks
My son was born on Christmas last year. I'll eventually leave it up to him, but I was thinking "Why bother with a Christmas birthday at all?" My son might prefer having a half-birthday party on/around 6/25 - maybe a pool party? Swimming with his friends sounds a lot better than struggling to get a party together during a holiday season where everyone has family things to do or they're out of town anyway. Why fight it?
My son was born on Dec 15th we throw the ( friend party) the weekend before to allow as much time/space from x-mas as possible but as a family we celebrate on the 15th. So farthis has worked great! Also the tree doesn't go up til his birthday is over...
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