2 posts tagged “holidays”

I had a really lovely birthday yesterday, which is a pleasant surprise.  I have a history of having bad birthdays, particularly milestones (I celebrated my sweet sixteen and eighteenth at the doctor's office).  I didn't expect this one to be particularly noteworthy because nearly all of my friends are out of town.  I haven't had a birthday party in seven years and thought it might be nice for a change.  However, a few people really went out of their way to make my birthday special, and I really appreciated it.

I woke up showered with all sorts of little, cutesy birthday things.  My sister wrote on the bathroom mirror and gave me a tiara and balloon ("Feliz Cumpleaños!").  My mother left out a giant muffin with a candle in it on a Happy Birthday plate for my breakfast and brought me home a Camembert.  My grandparents had flowers delivered.  While I'm thankful for the expensive presents I received Sunday at my family get-together, I love the cliché cards, flowers and balloons.

One of my friends who is completing an internship back East this summer called to send her birthday regards and spent two hours on the phone talking to me.  Not only was I ecstatic to talk to her, but I appreciate that she remembered my birthday since I know she had no way of being reminded by a social networking site or mutual acquaintance.  My two favorite birthday things are cards and phone calls.  Cards show the person actually remembered my birthday in advance, and phone calls show that they are willing to devote a part of their busy day to me.

My day concluded with a lovely dinner out with my friend who is in town for the summer.  She was patient and an excellent listener, letting me spew out verbal diarrhea for hours.  Our server was genuinely friendly, chatting with us for a solid five or ten minutes at the beginning of the meal, and the whole restaurant sang happy birthday to me.  Heck, even people on the bus wished me a happy birthday.

I've been getting a lot better about birthdays lately.  I sent cards for about 75% of birthdays in the last year and have made phone calls when I've been in the US.  This year has reminded me how important it is for me to nail everybody's birthday in the coming year.

When I was thinking about how to celebrate my 21st, I felt like it needed to be about big presents and wild parties, but I was really happy just to have a few quality social interactions and be acknowledged.  Perhaps I'm actually becoming an adult.

After two years of standing in the cold for hours to watch fireworks at the Needle, it was nice to just stay in for New Year's Eve with my family.  Quinn came over in the afternoon for multiple hours of kitchen slavery which produced an edible but unremarkable Indian dinner.  After dinner, we played the new Cranium game Hoopla! and shot off fireworks before heading over to Quinn's to play cards with her parents and marry her teddy bears.  (Honest, we're 20!  But nothing is cuter than giant plush bears exchanging rings and cutting a funfetti cake.)

I haven't laughed so much in a long time.  It felt so good to be a kid again, twirling around with sparklers in the yard and crumpling into a giggling pile on the floor after the smallest jokes.  It doesn't surprise me that Quinn and Diana are the only ones who can really bring me out of my shell, as they the only people from my childhood I still see, but it does make me a little sad.  Why can't I have honest-to-God silly fun with anybody else?  There are other people who I consider to be closer friends, yet I cannot recall the last time we were debilitated by fits of giggles.  I want to be able to tap into this girlish glee more often, but it's slowly slipping away and I don't know how to change that.

In other news, I went cross-country skiing for the first time last week.  Instead of the Olympics, Diana and I conjured up images of Ski Free (which isn't even cross-country) and being eaten by the Yeti.  Thus, we spent the entire day prancing around, wondering if we'd gone 2000 meters so the Sasquatch could gobble us up.

It was actually an enjoyable experience, so hopefully we'll get out more often.  Even though we were on a trail with other people, the snow muffled most of the noise so I was able to take in the mountains, forest and lake.  I didn't take too many photos because it was impossible, fumbling with the camera while wearing gloves.  For awhile, I thought I was a skiing natural as I whizzed along the pre-made tracks.  However, the moment I stepped onto smooth snow, both legs split and I was flat on my face.  Diana wants to try downhill (I think she seeks out the Sasquatch), but I'd rather just enjoy the scenery.