Birthday Traditions

One of the tradition of our birthday is to eat noodles. And the noodles is called "Long-life" noodle and we place the best wishes. I know the most famous "Long-life" noodle is like the width of a hair and a bowl of noodle is made of just one noodle. This kind of noodle represents long-life as its name does.

I sort of made (the mistake of making) pinatas for my kid's last two birthdays. I just drew a big design of whatever they were into at that moment, and fashioned out pinatas using a cardboard. And then I stuffed it with their favorite candies. The last I did was of a test tube (lab experimenting phase), and face of soldier (modern warfare phase). I can see this becoming a birthday tradition.

In our family we always got a cake of our choosing, and some birthdays if we had the money, my mom would go to a place that made these big cookies, bigger than a usual cake, and have it decorated for our birthdays in lieu of cake. Then she would make whatever we wanted for our dinner. As adults my dad tries to take my sister and I to dinner to wherever we want to go for our birthdays. He'll make the 3 hour trip to see my sister just to take her out to dinner for her birthday. I'm closer so I save him gas! lol

For as long as I can remember I take them out for supper to the restaurant of their choice..my daughters birthdays are four days apart so when they were young we had one party with all their friends.....and they didn't always get cake as there would be too much around...so one might get the cake..the other a pie....or croissant sundaes..something different. My son however who is 33 now..still get a cake or something like it....this year it was cupcakes.

Hey kats! And a very happy b-day to the little guy! I hope he had a really fun time, and I'm sure he did. I remember my parties and my brother's parties sort of when we were kids, probably not as well as I would like because of the situation of him being gone and it's too sad for me (there's that whole childhood thing again) Mostly the parties were in the house, arranged by Mom. We had family sometimes and usually our little friends from the neighboorhood. Sometime Mom would bake a cake, but usually she bought it.

We always celebrate on the day the person (kid or adult) has it's birthday. Gifts (even if it has to be before breakfast) singing. A cake they like with candles to burn and do a wish. The house I decorate the night before. And ofcourse they can choose what to have for dinner. Those who go to school will have a treat. Mostly we have to make that one too because the schools don't like us to give candies/sweeties, cake etc.. it has to be healthy. If we give a birthday party (for the children) it will be in the weekend. Depends on the age if we go out (cinema, musea, inside playground etc). If they go to highschool they go out with their friends themselves. Adults it depends. I don't celebrate my birthday anymore. I get tired of serving other people and prefer to do on my birthday what I like. So escape (holiday or so) that day if possible.

Most times we will have a party and invite all the family and close friends to it. I love decorating the cakes and cupcakes for these parties. I usually either make the decorations or buy them but it is fun putting my own special twist on the parties... Right now I am in the process of planning a party for my little sister. She choose a Jungle theme. SO I been going out and buying up stuff from thrift stores and stuff that are themed jungle. I bought 5 monkeys to hang from the ceiling that I will be adding vines to all over the ceiling in swoops. I already have a life size tiger family in White tiger and the yellow.. I'm making a elephant pinata that I seen online that was adorable and I always make them. Cute ideas for the goody bags and not sure if we will do a jungle costume thing or not like we did with the aloha party because of the extra expense..I'm making a Zebra Cake..and different animal cupcakes.. I'm searching for parakeets..and have to make my home into a jungle with cardboard and poster board..I'm praying she is happy with the end results.

We do some presents in the morning, then at the weekend we'll normally have a little party (if it's the kids) with some food and a cake. Nothing fancy.

We don't have any specific tradition in celebrating birthdays in my family. In fact birthdays rarely being celebrate in my area. For older ones like my mom and I, most of the time we don't celebrate at all. I bought a cake for my mom once but she didn't even know it was for her birthday until it's time to cut it. For the young ones, we bought a cake (with certain theme like Spongebob or any cartoon character that catches his interest at that moment for my younger brother), prepare a few more food and bought presents. Sometimes we don't celebrate on the date due to school and work so we either celebrate earlier and later than the date.

I just throw a party for my daughter who turns 18 last Sunday. Here in my country, the most common tradition when a girl turns 18 is to have a grand party. But it's not what we did. It's just a simple celebration with family and friends and it was lot of fun.

Birthday have always been really important in my family and for that reason we always all get together to celebrate birthdays. For the adults in the family, we will typically go to a restaurant that the adult really likes and each branch of the family will pay for their own meal. When it comes to the children, we will gather together and open up the presents that has been bought for the birthday child, then we will go to Gattitown together for a birthday dinner for the child. Our children are also allowed to have a birthday party at home with a few of their friends.

Us in the family always buy or prepare a food, such as spaghetti or stir fried noodles to celebrate the birthday. For us, it means wishing the birthday celebrant, long , long life still. And also if the celebrant is already an adult, he /she would go to church and light a candle and pray for more years to come. But usually, it's a tradition that when a child turns 1 , 7 and 18 years old, a party for her will be prepared , even if it's just a simple one.