The Trend of Birthday Gifts

"The best birthdays of all are those that haven't arrived yet."
Robert Orben

And the best gift is the one you are going to choose.  Birthday gifts are meant to celebrate the person, and the relationship that you have with them.  It is that one day in the year when they are made to feel special, and loved in so many ways.  Birthday gifts are only a part of that whole message that you want to give.  Just as hugs and kisses have been reserved for special people in your life, birthday gifts are given to only the special people in your life.

There was this one couple I knew way back in 1980s in Pennsylvania.  They were an old couple; living by themselves.  They had a long driveway, leading up to the front door.  And every spring, the husband would plant rows upon rows of flowers along the driveway, for them to bloom just in time for her birthday.  It was a ritual he followed year after year, and I saw it as long as I lived in the neighborhood.  Now, isn't that touching? Most of us are not so lucky to have driveways and dream houses, and we live in an age of virtual pets and virtual flowers.

That is why I feel that since nature's blooms cannot be gifted year after year like the old man there, nature's colors can be brought to a loved one as gemstone jewelry.  A birthday gift of these is an ideal way of bringing nature closer to a loved one.  Gemstones are formed after years of processing deep inside the earth, and it takes several man hours to craft them into the perfection we see them as.  Its somewhat like the person that you become, with years of sharing and love in your life.  And a birthday gift epitomizes all that.  A valued possession, for a valued person.

Then there are half birthdays and unbirthdays.  Never heard of them?  Half birthday is the day that is six months from the actual birthday, and is celebrated because the actual day would fall sometime during the holidays.  Unbirthday has an amusing origin.  Unbirthday is an event that can be any day that is not the persons' birthday! It was a neologism in Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, and later was a number in the film!

An interesting fact about birthdays is also that early Christians did not celebrate Christmas because they considered the celebration of anyone's birth to be a pagan custom!

Unconfirmed sources claim that the origin of birthday celebrations was in Europe.  It was a common superstition that on a person's birthday, evil spirits were attracted to them, and for their protection, they would be visited by friends and family, who would bring good wishes and thoughts.  The possibility exists of this trend transmuting itself to sending wishes from somebody who could not attend; and also of amalgamating with the custom of never going empty hand to somebody's house.(Reminds me of the Magi).

Whatever the origin, it is a whooping industry out there, and birthday gifts and cards make for 90% of households in US indulging in some form of birthday gift or the other.