It’s My Birthday and I’m Abusing my Ability to Publish Articles to Tell You This

I am now considered to be 19 years old. A few people would say that I have to wait until my time of birth before I can say I am a year older, but I’m not waiting until 10.30pm because then I would only get an hour and a half of birthday time and that’s not even enough to watch a birthday film.

Turning 19 is not as emphatic or wondrous as turning 18 was. When I turned 18 it allowed me to do things I had previously been forbidden by law from doing. I was now able to buy a car, real estate, alcohol and tobacco all at the same time, free to get married without consent, buy films and games rated 18+ from shops with strict policies, vote, appear in court, change my name, be a jury member, own land, gamble and donate blood. If you did all of those things on the same day, many kudos…

Now that I’m 19, I am allowed to buy alcohol in Canada.

When this revelation sprung upon me, dampening the birthday spirit and excitement, it got me thinking. I was about to go to bed at the time, and when I was close to falling asleep I had a thought: why do we celebrate birthdays?

My first thought response was that, much like Christmas, Easter, days rejoicing parents and days of the general festive and/or celebratory variety, the actual meaning for celebrating each event has been diluted or lost in the ever-increasing rate of commercially-caused tornadoes that sweep their way over society, whirling away with some of our money each and every time. In 2011, Britons won’t have time to recover from Hurricane Easter, because Hurricane Royal Wedding is going to be tearing its way up and down the nation; I am more than happy to take the day off to ‘celebrate’ (read ‘take no interest in’) the matrimony of Prince William and Kate Middleton, but I will not be buying a commemorative plate or framed picture…

Do you think in ten or twenty years, primary school kids will have to be told that Christmas is called so because of Jesus Christ?

Easter is associated with chocolate eggs and a bunny and Christmas time is associated with presents, a tasty dinner and to those with some sentimental value, getting together as a family for about ten minutes of joyous harmony before someone has one too many glasses of port and shouts at one of the kids for crying, kicking the dog or sulking.

In my opinion, the celebration of the birthday is the event that has lost the most meaning. Yes, for that one day in the year your friends and family pay more attention to you and may shower you with gifts and the like, but are you and your relatives really celebrating your day of birth and your success at having reached another designated age barrier?

You wake up on your birthday, usually within the vicinity of family. You are given presents which you probably requested, before having a breakfast that’s cooked for you and/or unhealthy. You then spend a certain part of the day enjoying your gifts, writing thank you cards and maybe going out to lunch or dinner with family relatives or friends. You blow out the candles on a cake at some point.

The day quickly passes, and before you know it you’re off to bed to wake up the next day and spend it like you would most others. It’s one of the only times of the year that people go out of their way to eat cake. The sentimental value of the day is quickly gone, like every other day of festivities, to come back in a year’s time for a brief 24 hours.

Your birthday, like everyone else’s, becomes routine. Beforehand you and relatives consider spending limits, delivery dates, likes and hates, requests, what cake to get, who to invite to a possible party, when and where to have the party etc. The day gets planned and executed in a usually organised fashion. But beneath all the balloons, the cake, the presents, the reuniting with family members for the third and last time in the year, the strippers, the scotch and the hooker your mate ordered you as a joke but you think he’s serious about, the real reason for all of this occurring seems hidden. Commercialism is the thorn in the side of festive sentimentality.

The point I’m haphazardly driving at is this: when commemorating a birthday, or enjoying Christmas, Easter or St. Patrick’s Day, go for what is now the unconventional. You’re celebrating a birthday because you love the person you’re dedicating your time and day to. You’re happy that they are a year older and still in your life.

People shouldn’t be obligated to give presents and cards and wine and flowers and cakes and hookers, because they are all in some form a product of business and marketing (there’s some business out there that deals in birthday prostitutes, I know it). It seems like there has to be presents under the 7 foot+ Christmas tree that is covered in decorations and if there isn’t then Christmas is ruined. That is not the case.

FYI, I loathe cards. Their false sentiments, sometimes high prices and shitty jokes irk me hugely for some reason. The only time when I can appreciate a card is when I receive one from someone long-distance or surprising: usually I’ll see someone receive a card, open it to skim-read the message, then put it to one side with the rest of them.

I love presents though (who doesn’t) and as much as I’d like to be ‘that guy’ and say “instead of giving me presents I’d like you to give money to charity and go and adopt a puppy and then give it to an orphan so they can have a companion who sticks by them through thick and thin”, I can’t because the feeling of receiving presents is wonderful… if the presents are given out of love and not out of the feeling of necessity. I admit that from time to time I have been the thing I’ve come to despise, a present-hungry spoiled child, but I think I’ve grown up a bit now and have come to realise that presents are an added bonus.

When I found out that Minecraft was to go from alpha to beta on my birthday which would mean a price increase, I checked my bank account and discovered that after buying far too many films and presents I couldn’t afford to spend more money on non-necessities. I jokingly asked the Nukezilla staff if someone would help me out as a birthday present, and to my great surprise the amiable and incredibly sexy Brett Parsons bought me a Minecraft account. I was taken aback, because this act of generosity showed true sentiment and kindness.

I’d rather have a Minecraft account given to me like that for my birthday than a games console or a television that I asked for in advance. I do have this strange borderline obsession with un-boxing, getting a thrill from opening new things and basking in the glow of the shininess and newness (I’ve yet to open up my copy of the Inception Limited Edition version that comes in an aluminium casing resembling the machines used in the film and I cannot wait to) but it’s the little things like that which have the biggest and best meaning.

Today I am going to watch Tron: Legacy in IMAX in the cinema with the biggest screen in Britain. I bought the ticket myself because it is something I really wanted to do but didn’t want my parents to have to pay for. I will be catching trains and won’t likely be at my mum’s house before 10pm, but I hope to be there before the day is up because I know that my family genuinely celebrates each and every family member’s birthday with sentiment. I think this is the first time I won’t have spent my birthday at a parent’s house and that makes me a bit sad, but I’m going to have a great day and I think that’s all that really matters in the end.

I’ll leave this with a fun* fact and a question.

Fun* fact: my 21st birthday will be on the eve of the supposed end of the world.

Question: how do you celebrate your birthday?

*I think it’s fun…