Friday, October 28, 2011

Friday Felicities #12

What's making me happy today is that today is my birthday! Today's Friday Felicities post goes out to my parents.

I credit my Mom and Dad for the fact that I am one of those people who loooooves their birthday. In a family with five children, the opportunities for each of us to be celebrated individually were limited, but our birthday was certainly one of those times. 

In my family, your birthday day was all about you, beginning with breakfast, when the Birthday Celebrant's place was set with Mom's "good" china and Waterford crystal.




There was also a Kellogg's Fun Pak awaiting the Birthday Girl/Boy's first choice of "cold" cereal - a big treat since we ate hot cereal every week day. I wasn't (and still am not) a fan of the super-sugary cereals, so my foks always got me the non-sugary version of the Fun Pak that included Rice Krispies and Special K.
Since finding out about this tradition, my lovely friend Anne has provided me with a Snak Pak on each of my birthdays since we've met, which is going on 17 years.

We were invited to not only produce a Birthday List of the gifts we wanted, but we got to choose the menu for our birthday meal. We never got all those presents, obviously, but we did always get our special meal. Depending on the request, the whole family got to enjoy the meal choice (pork chops and scalloped potatoes, my menu for at least 5 years running), or the Birthday Celebrant got their own special meal (my brothers often chose steak). I always had pumpkin pie as my dessert.

Over dinner, my Mom would recount the story of the day we were born ("X years ago today...."), and the highlights for each person were always the same (mine involved a 95-year-old lady cab driver; my brother's, Mom's erroneous assumption that labour pains were indigestion from the hot dog she ate that day).

So there you have it - the story of why I love my birthday and why I am happy (ha! pun intended) today.

Have a great weekend, (even if yours isn't going to include birthday cake like mine is).

32 comments:

  1. Felicity! Happy birthday. Mine was Tuesday! Great week for birthdays.
    I'll raise a bowl of Rice Krispies in your honor.

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  2. Happy Birthday! Reading about your lovely childhood celebrations made be happy too : )

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  3. I, too, believe in celebrating birthdays and recalling events of the day the special someone was born! Good for your mom and dad for making YOUR day always special. Happy Birthday!

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  4. Happy Birthday! It sounds like your family knows how to make one special. My husband calls me a Birthday Princess because my mom always made a big deal out of celebrating our birthdays and now he feels like he has to live up to it. Hope you have a great day.

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  5. Happy Birthday, Felicity! i hope it's a fabulous day!! (and year!)

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  6. Happy Birthday!!! It's great that you love your birthdays. Have a wonderful day celebrating!

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  7. Wishing you a very happy birthday and a fabulous year!

    : )

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  8. Happy Birthday! How fun to hear about your family's birthday traditions. Enjoy your cereal and birthday cake!

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  9. Happy Birthday!
    That was fun to read about your birthday traditions.

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  10. Happy Birthday Felicity!! What great traditions to pass down to your daughter too!! Enjoy it!

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  11. Happy Birthday :) My Granddaughter, Felicity turned 10, October 10th. hope your day was special.

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  12. Sounds fabulous: hope you're having a very happy birthday

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  13. Happy birthday! And congratulations on fantastic birthday traditions :-)

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  14. Thanks for sharing our birthday celebration traditions Felicity. Brings back sweet wonderful memories of planning a special birthday for each of you as you grew up. Love from Mom!

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  15. Happy Birthday to you! What a cool story. My kids and husband get their favorite dinner to this day. Creating great memories like that are what life is all about.

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  16. Happy Birthday! I think I'll do a bit of Modern Quilting in your honour! Have a wonderful day!

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  17. Happy birthday! Sounds like your mom made birthdays a lot of fun. : )

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  18. Happy Birthday! Love the stories and what a lovely family you have :) Enjoy the weekend x

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  19. happy birthday! and what a lovely story about your celebratory traditions! Have you carried this on with your daughter?

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  20. Happy birthday!!!! I love all of your traditions. I love my birthday, too- who cares about getting older if it involves cake and presents! I hope you get ridiculous amounts of both. Have fun!

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  21. Happy Birthday!!! What wonderful family traditions.

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  22. Happy birth-day! Hope it is fantastic!

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  23. happy birthday!, what's on the menu tonight??

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  24. Happy happy birthday! Fun story. Your folks rock!!

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  25. I hope you had a great day and just as wonderful birthday weekend!

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  26. Happy Birthday Felicity!

    i love the cereal story! we always got those when we stayed at my grandma's, which was a huge treat, and then we'd fight over who got which one.

    i hope you're having a fabulous birthday weekend!

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  27. Happy Belated Birthday Felicity! I hope your day was a wonderful one, and the weekend followed the same course. I love how your family always made sure the birthday person was celebrated on their day - that is just so fabulous. Happy day!

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  28. Happy belated birthday! It's also my cousin's - Oct 28th babies seem to be pretty cool people. :-)

    PS - That penguin is too cute.

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  29. Such a great way to celebrate Birthdays!!
    I love my Birthday....each and every one of them. So much so that I now celebrate for Weeks :) why settle for just one day. Life should be a Celebration :)

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