Birthday celebrations

I have seen many posts on Facebook about people's disappointments about not being able to celebrate their children's birthdays with parties. Two of my children, as well as my husband, have had birthdays during this COVID-19 pandemic. As it was getting close to the first birthday celebration (my oldest was turning 10), I could see her disappointment at not being able to have a birthday party. I think for her, it was more the longing to see a friend in person, over having an actual party. Besides, all we had for her last birthday was 3 of her friends came over for pizza, and had a sleep over (where there wasn't much sleep, of course).

My mother made the point that neither she nor my father could remember having parties to celebrate their birthdays growing up. They might have had a cake, maybe one present, is what they said. Growing up, we never really did big parties either. My two brothers and I had birthdays within 3 weeks (July 17, 21, Aug 5). Several times, my mom would allow us to have 2 friends come to the city swimming pool with us, and that was our celebration. My kids were looking through my photo album and saw one of these pictures, and my birthday cake was an actual watermelon with candles. And it was the best!

I think I am not a fan of large and over-the-top birthday parties, because I don't want the stress of putting it on. So we haven't had many parties for birthdays. Maybe 3 that I can count between the 3 kids over the last 10 years. My mom has done some for the kids when their birthdays were around the time we were visiting them, which made it easier on me. But I prefer just us with them, eating homemade cake, and celebrating the fact that God allowed me to carry their heavy butt for 9 months and then birthed them without medicine (the last two anyway).

So here are their celebrations:
Jeanne was able to Zoom meeting with some of her friends, which funny enough they were quiet for the first 3 minutes. I had to prompt her to ask them how they were.
Her birthday cake was supposed to be a two layered homemade chocolate cake, but I didn't spray the pans well enough, and the cakes didn't want to come out neatly. So we had two single layer cakes. Which was just as good. Then of course she got to Zoom with my mom, dad, brother and sister, while she opened the gifts they mailed here.

 My husband's favorite dessert is New York-Style cheesecake. And that's what I made him. We also picked up from Texas Roadhouse (our first eat-out of the COVID lockdown). For breakfast, he had a candle so we could sing happy birthday.









Then for Katie's 5th birthday, we did unicorns (Again). She also got a birthday zoom with my family, and a homemade unicorn cake. So, all in all, I think birthdays were celebrated just fine. There were no tears nor complaints about what we did once the day had started. And I enjoyed celebrating their sweet faces.