“I love having my birthday at Christmas-time. Everyone is so happy!”

That’s an adorable quote from my youngest daughter, born December 20. 

So many people feel sorry for kids born around the holidays, but it doesn’t need to be depressing for them if you help them take my daughter’s optimistic attitude. 

I go pretty crazy with presents for my daughters at Christmas, so it never made sense to get her YET another present specifically for her birthday. So I would just let her pick out one from the pile to choose for her birthday gift. 

Here’s why I don’t suggest this (although I did it for years and she didn’t seem to care). Because, if you’re like me, I literally forget the presents I got them since they’ve been wrapped for awhile, so I couldn’t guarantee that she would pick out one of the ‘better’ gifts. You know how you mix up your gifts for the kids, in that some of them are the nice, bigger or more expensive things they REALLY wanted, and others are more like some Oreos or boxes of pasta with a restaurant gift card- really cute gifts but not exactly all that special? I swear she had a knack for choosing those cutesy gifts as her birthday presents. This year I picked out a very nice gift I was certain she would love, and made sure I wrapped that in NON-Christmas wrapping paper. So it’s already wrapped differently and I know exactly what’s in it. Done.

Even though there’s a lot of activity and maybe holiday parties going on, be sure to have a special dinner. This seems obvious. I just think it’s so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the season and not carve out the time for her. A restaurant of her choice and tell them to bring out a special dessert. We always do a birthday toast before we go out to wish her a happy, healthy and wonderful new birthday year.

The Birthday Holiday Party

For my daughter’s 18th birthday, we wanted a special party that celebrated both Christmas AND her birthday. Called it MERRY BIRTHDAY. This was such a cute idea and I highly suggest it if you have a child born this time of year. Do this for a special year like 16, 18 or 21 yrs. Since we have a small home, we rented a room at a local hotel, where we could also utilize their food service, and out-of-towners could stay overnight if they chose.

Since I LOVE themes, we had lots of party ideas that married the holiday and birthday themes really well, and were so enjoyable for guests of all ages.

Two cakes. These cakes really captured the theme of this party so beautifully. One with a Merry Christmas with vanilla cake, and the other with a photo of my daughter and happy birthday, with her favorite flavor, chocolate. I took a big risk getting the photo…kids can be highly embarrassed and you never know. I figured I was safe with her HS graduation photo, and she was thrilled with it!

With so much cake we had plenty of leftovers. So we took her remaining birthday cake and froze it. We pulled it out on her 19th birthday to celebrate- just like you do on your first wedding anniversary. Ha!

Guests. Since this was also a Christmas party, we invited our friends, too. We wanted to have an open bar, and with her and her friends just 18, we gave them wristbands so that bartenders would be aware. It worked perfectly. 

Decorations. Balloons and streamers in green and red, and Christmas candles on the tables. Making one of the big cut-out numbers with her photos on it is such a cute idea, and party-goers love to look at her photos over the years. Plus it’s so fun for her sisters and me to go back through older photos for this project.

Photo Booth. This was a HUGE hit. Did you know you can get this setup that works using your phone?

We bought both Christmas and birthday props for everyone to use. These pictures really capture how much fun this was! 

Music. My husband and I just got married the year before this party, and literally as soon as we were engaged we started working on our wedding playlist. This is how important music is to both of us! My children love it too, so we made sure to get their input on songs for both background music/dinner and dancing. This is going to mean you might not like everything, but they won’t either. Eg, my husband really wanted YMCA by the Village People, since it’s such a fun dancing song. Our friends LOVED it, the girls thought it was weird, but joined in anyway. Pennsylvania Polka anyone? (see food below) A few line dancing songs are always fun to get the crowd involved too.

Food. My children are Eastern European on their dad’s side, and grew up making Polish food with their grandmother. So we wanted to be sure to include her/their favorite foods like pirogies!

I hope if you have children born around the holidays, you consider a party like this! It’s a wonderful way to celebrate holidays with your friends and family while making it a memorable birthday for her!