My cousin and I grew up, married, had kids, but come Chanukah we’d still pose like chassan and kallah with a birthday cake
M y birthday falls out around Chanukah.
When I was a kid I thought that meant bundled presents. That doesn’t sound so bad in theory: Take the price of two gifts combine it and you get one BIG gift like an American Girl doll. (I know kids get them regularly today but growing up we had to be happy with the catalog — I knew ONE person who owned one.) But as I got older and wiser I realized that no that’s not what actually happened: I got one gift and was told it was for both.
I don’t totally blame my parents for this: Buying gifts isn’t rocket science it’s harder. If they could find an excuse and get away with it good for them. I was sorry for me though. Then there was the party issue: Everyone is in Chanukah spirit already they don’t need an excuse like my birthday to have a great time.
Don’t feel sorry for me yet — that’ll come soon.
There was one glorious bright spot of my Chanukah birthday. Every year at my maternal grandparents’ party there would be an ice cream cake to celebrate my birthday. It was always the same cake from the Ice Cream Center on 13th Avenue. Vanilla on top chocolate on bottom cookie crumbs separating the two. It was decorated with plastic roses one pink one blue. Piped in gel was Happy Birthday Esther and Raphael. Yup I had to share it with my cousin born ten days after me. I didn’t mind really because I don’t think we would have celebrated if it were just me. And he was a boy so there was no competition just the pink rose for me and the blue rose for… well he didn’t care about the blue rose. One year my younger cousin took the pink rose for herself. I can still access the horror of that loss. Serious childhood trauma here.
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