Happy Birthday to................. ME!

Hello, Hummingbirds! Today, February 22nd, 2023, marks my 41st birthday! And while it isn’t my milestone (like last year, my 40th, commemorating my reaching the hill peak and successfully beginning the long journey down said hill), it is still VERY important to me for a variety of reasons:

1. I’m still alive, y’all.

2. Cake.

3. Every morning I wake up and don’t immediately take Tylenol is a win.

4. So far, the rolling down the hill isn’t too bad – so I’m blessed to not be dizzy, yet.

So I decided to research birthdays; where they started and how they became what they are!

Most historians believe that the celebrations of birthdays date back to Egypt as early as 3000 BC, however, only one person was celebrated (Pharaoh) and it wasn’t the birth so much as it was the celebration of Pharaoh becoming a God. Later, the Greeks adopted this practice, although, it was to celebrate their various Gods and Goddesses. The Greeks offered moon-shaped cakes with a candle placed in the middle for a glowing affect and to signal a prayer being sent. When the candle was done burning, the smoke would carry the prayer to the heavens.

The Romans were the first to not celebrate the birthdays of only religious figures. The government created public holidays for the more famous citizens, but celebrations for friends and families were normalized, especially for certain milestones, such as the 50th birthday, where the celebrated would receive a cake made of wheat flour, olive oil, honey and grated cheese. Women, however, did not have birthday honors until around the 12th century.

Traditionally, Christians believed that celebrating an individual’s birthday was evil and a pagan practice – although, once the puritan influence lifted, the belief shifted and Christmas being the birthday of Jesus was born (around the 4th century). The church did this partly in hopes of recruiting those already celebrating the Roman holiday of Saturnalia.

Birthday festivities pretty much stayed the same until the 18th century when Germans began to practice kinderfeste – or child party/festival. This is where you begin to see the use of cake with one candle for each year the child has been alive, plus another to symbolize the hope of living for at least one more year (or as we put it now, for “good luck”). This was also when the child blowing out the candles and making a wish became a tradition, still practiced today. Some cultures said that the wish needed to be kept secret or it wouldn’t come true; some say all the candles need to be blown out with one breath, etc; which goes to show you the influence on American traditions as throughout my 41 years on earth, I can remember not only the two examples listed, but many others.

The most famous of all of these traditions is the singing of “Happy Birthday To You” song. From what I’ve uncovered, the original tune, entitled “Good Morning To All” was composed in 1893 by Mildred J. Hill. The intention was this song would be sung by students every morning. Robert Coleman, in 1924, published a songbook that added a few extra lyrics that overshadowed the original lines, which included, “happy birthday to you” as we now know it.

So that begs the question: how do you celebrate your birthday? Me – I bake my own cake (because, duh!), make dinner (sometimes we order, but today I’m making myself a feast of comfort food), and have all my kids near me! I’m not interested in having 41 candles in my cake, plus one for good luck due to the fire hazard it would create, but I am interested in having one candle for good luck to send all my prayers to the heavens and say hi to my mom, Mimi!

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