Birthday Traditions

Me and my mom on my first birthday. 

Today is Piglet's fourth birthday, and also the Eve of Nativity for us.  Until this year, Piglet never really got what his birthday was all about, so we just subsumed birthday gifts in with our 12 days of Christmas gifts and didn't worry about a celebration on the day.  We have an annual party sometime during the 12 days anyway, so as to celebrate Piglet's birthday, plus several namesdays that happen to fall during that time, but this is the first year that Piglet really gets what birthdays are all about.  He has been talking about his birthday for weeks, and is very excited to be four.  He has occasionally asked me for something random "for his birthday" over the last few weeks, but he is still innocent of so much toy marketing (another reason to love not having a television) and I think has low expectations for presents.  I know this is probably the last year that will be true, and I intend to savor it.

You can't see it very well, but my mom made me a house cake.  
Yep, a house.  Take that, petting zoo.

I've been thinking on and off all week about how to make his birthday special, given that it is Christmas Eve (and thus a busy church day), and also still the Fast (so dinner has to be vegan).  Growing up, my mother always made sure that we felt special on our birthdays.  She had a blue plate that said "It's Your Special Day" and the birthday person got to use it all day long (we always called it the special plate).  My mom gave each of us girls one when we got to be adults, so I have one to use now too.  My mom made a special breakfast (or sometimes my dad would go buy donuts), and we got to pick our birthday meal.  There was sparkling grape juice for the wine goblets, and the good china, silverware, and nice tablecloth put out.  We could pick our birthday dessert (not everyone is a cake fan in our house--my dad is very partial to pie, for instance); I usually picked chocolate zucchini cake, having a July birthday.  We rarely had big birthday parties growing up, and I'm now grateful for that tradition, having seen the arms race of birthday celebrations amongst parents my age.  (If you are getting a petting zoo for their first birthday, what on earth are you going to do when they are 10, or 16?  Just because you can doesn't mean you should.  Just sayin')

Chocolate zucchini cake.
Nom-nom-nom.

So as I wrapped presents yesterday (both for Christmas and birthday), I pondered a bit.  I had already decided that Piglet was too young to make a decision about dinner--he doesn't remember enough of what we eat, and I pretty much know what fasting dinners are particular favorites of his.  So I'm making sloppy soys (Sloppy Joes, but with soy crumbles), using my mother's tried and true recipe (see below), and I'm going to see if there are some vegan cookies at Whole Foods later today.  I'd make a whole vegan dessert, but with it being Christmas Eve, and tomorrow there will be lots of non-fasting desserts, it seems a waste.  Piglet doesn't like fizzy drinks, so I'm considering what type of drink would be a treat for him.  We don't keep juice in the house, but perhaps I can find some small amount that will make for a dinner treat.

The hat cake. 

My husband has been surprisingly Scroogey about this whole process.  He always complains that his birthdays have never been fun for him, and so I was surprised when I started discussing my plans with him and he was definitely not on board.  He wanted to give Piglet a small glass of grapefruit juice squeezed from the fruit and nothing else (Piglet does like this, but it seems decidedly un-festal to me).  I asked him what his own family birthday traditions were and wasn't too surprised to hear they didn't have any.  His family isn't strong on those sorts of things.

 As I mentioned in my Christmas Traditions post, I think having these sorts of traditions is important.  It creates family ritual and memories for years to come.  I still remember the year my youngest sister requested noodles for her birthday dinner.  Nothing on them, just plain noodles.  Or the year I started decorating cakes for my parents' birthdays.  I did a flowery one for my mom in January, and then made a fishing cake for my dad in September, complete with a fisherman doll that I made myself.  

The famous fishing cake, which if I do say so myself, was totally neat.
I used blue gel to make water look real.

  So in the spirit of creating a rich tapestry of family traditions, I'm weaving a new thread this year with birthdays.  H is old enough to be trusted with the blue "special" plate and to appreciate a nice tablecloth on the table.  He understand the concept of special treats, and is interested in presents.  So I hope this day is nice for him.  I hope that when our kids are grown, they too will look back on our family birthday parties with nostalgia and happiness, grateful for the times we shared.

Sloppy Joes (courtesy of my mom)
*To make vegan, simply substitute one package soy crumbles.  We prefer Morningstar Farms to Boca.*

1# ground beef
1 large onion, diced (or 1 c. frozen)
1 green bell pepper, diced (or whatever color you have around)
1 can Campbell's condensed tomato soup (I've also made this with tetrapaks of tomato soup, just make sure you are using about 10 oz.)
1 T. white vinegar
2 T. brown sugar
few dashes cayenne pepper
few dashes celery salt
1-2 T. ketchup
1-2 T. mustard (Dijon is particularly nice and zippy)
few shakes Worchestershire sauce (optional)

Brown beef, onions and pepper in large skillet.  Add remainder ingredients and simmer until nice and bubbly.  This is one of those recipes that you might want to taste as you go along and adjust ingredients accordingly.  I generally dislike those types of recipes, since I never am able to replicate the dash-of-this, and pinch-of-that of the cook, but the above will yield a good result even if you don't tinker with it. You can add chili powder (up to 1T.) and BBQ sauce (up to 1/4 c) if you like.  I serve these on buns with pickles.