Christmas is a burden my daughter bears annually. Her birthday is the day after Santa’s annual appearance, which has been a disappointment her whole life. This year, especially so, because it’s a big birthday — she turns 18.
She resents the intrusion of Yuletide on her special day, the way the holiday closes school and takes her friends away, depriving my girl of the party she desires. We’ve compensated over the years and have tried celebrating in mid-December before classmates flee for vacation or in early January when they’ve returned, but neither remedy is the same as being feted on your day.
I’m not unsympathetic to her plight. I have a birthday that poses a similar dilemma. I was born the day before Thanksgiving and remember feeling my cake was an afterthought among the pies and baked goods, with the family barely awake, fighting turkey induced comas as they mumbled a sleepy rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
But there isn’t anything that can be done about it. There is no way to change my child’s birthday now, no matter how hard I try.
It wasn’t planned this way. My daughter’s due date was in the middle of January, but weeks before some concerns cropped up about her size, and then whether she might have stopped growing in the womb. The doctor decided she needed to come out early and picked that Friday to induce labor, Dec. 26. All went well and she was ready to leave the hospital 24-hours after arriving in this world. Although we joked about rushing her out so we could claim her on that year’s taxes, her birth was a relief and a joy after weeks of growing concern and tension.
Of course that isn’t the way she sees it. There are things I can change as a parent and things I simply can’t. My daughter, as she turns 18, continues to gain increasing control over her life, with a giant leap into the realm of adulthood coming with college next fall. Driving, voting and having her own bank account, all these things are freedoms and offer, in turn, greater opportunities to decide her own fate.
There are other facts of her life, though, that she will never be able to change, no matter how much she wants to. Learning to accept — even embrace — these annoyances is also part of growing up.
My daughter has had some memorable birthdays over the years. She was hoisted onto a stage while serenaded with a Western-styled rendition of the birthday song on one vacation. She had two friends for a sleepover the year of the blizzard, sending them out sledding late at night in piles of fresh snow. This year we’ll try to make it special, recruiting a friend or two who, like her, are staying around to finish college applications, perhaps an adult dinner at a nice restaurant.
When she blows out the candle on her cake, she will make her wish and I will make mine — that she can make peace with the facts of her life, setting aside her childhood frustrations to find the excitement and adventure of becoming an adult.
