Birthdays...there are some I hate (mine) and some I love (my kiddos). Today finished our annual "birthday season," that occurs between November 22 just before Thanksgiving and MLK Jr. day. Within that fairly short time frame, 4 of the 5 of our family members have their birthdays. Paul's birthday is rolling around in a few months and by that time our wallets usually have recovered.
Here's the whole story. My birthday comes between Christmas and New years. As the story goes, the doctor asked my parents if they would like the baby to arrive before New Year's or after. Being the fiscal manager he is, my dad chose before, of course. This is where you will easily conjure up thoughts of a pity party...but anyway...so every year I received the occasional one gift at Christmas with the statement, "oh, by the way, this is for your birthday, too." Then there were the birthday gifts wrapped in Christmas paper. Add to that the fact the birthdays were just not celebrated at our house outside of your choosing the birthday meal. Mine was chicken and dumplings or fried chicken. I don't remember much else except Katie's since she was the next older and her favorite foods (ready for this?) were cabbage and liver and onions. Ick.
So, as an adult guess what I kept telling people? "I'll never (gotta watch that word with God) have a child around Christmas. My oldest was born just a mere two weeks before Christmas and then the second born in early January and then the youngest born the day before Thanksgiving. Wow, way to go, huh? That plan worked out really well, didn't it?
With that as the backdrop here is what we do at the Masters house. Each birthday is celebrated as a wonderful day created by God and a day of thanksgiving for the bundle of joy that God so chose to give us. We do not put up any Christmas decorations until after the first December birthday passes. We also take down the decorations before my birthday. I know that may sound strange. We always have a real live tree so the shorter time frame actually works quite well. We always look forward to those decorations going up and we are still in the holiday mood when we take them down. Oh, and we wrap birthday gifts in birthday paper and Christmas gifts in Christmas paper. Just a thing. We also do treats for wherever we'll be that day--school or church or wherever, and we do a cake of the birthday person's choosing. Brett is a confirmed chocolate-aholic...no kidding! His cupcakes were chocolate cake with chocolate chips iced with chocolate icing with chocolate chips. His cake was a Culver's concrete cake in the brownie overload variety. Yummy!
All that to say, I constantly think about memories of childhood and how they have left their mark on me whether bad or good---mostly good. I also think of how these memories we are making will play out in the minds of my children. Will they celebrate birthdays like we do or differently? We're here to make memories and leave an impression (that mark) on our children. It must include how they God and the world He created. This is my most important job.
In this, my the Lord order my steps.
Have a great week and my God Bless You!
Lisa
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