Birthdays

Hello High Heelers,

Well, tomorrow is my birthday. I am very partial to letting the whole world know when my birthday is so that I get loads of messages. Which means that every reader is now obligated to wish me a happy birthday – I’m delighted to receive FaceBook messages, emails, smses, or phonecalls. I’m not fussy. My very busy boss, Natalie Maroun, remembers to phone me every year, Just saying. Birthdays do not make me feel old, they make me feel special, I could happily have one every day and clock up 365 additional digits to my age over the next annum. I think I look good for someone in the triple century numbers.

Today I spent a few moments trying to decide what to do for my birthday. Tea party, night out, lunch or a little shin-dig with mates at the pub. The birthday options are quite endless. I finally decided to be traditional, so did a little research around what a proper birthday should entail. I was quite disappointed by the results. Mostly, I discovered that there’s no good reason behind why we celebrate birthdays. Some say they began when pagans believed that birthday people were susceptible to evil spirits, so they thwarted the bad by celebrating and lighting candles.

The origins of the ‘must have’ birthday cake are also not clear. There are writings around them having become popular in the 17^th Century in wealthy homes. But now they are ‘common’. I don’t know about you High Heelers, but I’m not partial to ‘common’ things. That’s a terrible description. I did find out that early cakes were quite similar to bread in their dough and consistency, their main difference was that they had icing. I suddenly understand Marie Antoinette’s ‘Let them eat cake’ statement a little better – poor, misunderstood lady. She didn’t just lose her mind; she lost her whole head for her incorrectly understood cake faux pas. That’s a lot to lose.

So here I sit, wondering how to have a ‘traditional birthday’ with nothing solid to go on. I’m supposed to have cake with candles to discourage evil spirits (though I’m pretty sure I’ve never encouraged them either). When the idea of cake is to bring people together to share and even make new friends. It doesn’t really make sense. So perhaps I shall settle on forgoing the cake, not lighting the candles and simply settling on feeling special and catching up with old friends who take the time to get in touch. 

So the point of these ramblings is... we don’t question things enough. This is the first time I have questioned why we have birthday celebrations. The first time! We don’t question Easter eggs and the bunnies that deliver them. We love that bunny, but we don’t look into the meaning behind it (since when does chocolate come from bunnies anyway?) We don’t wonder where Father Christmas came from – he is not Sinterklaas, patron of children, sailors and Amsterdam. We just follow tradition.

I’m not saying we should dump all traditions and kill the holiday seasons that we love. What I am suggesting is that we look into the meaning of the things we do to understand them better. In fact, we should just think about everything we do. As I ease towards my thirty-second celebration, I’d like to start my own traditions, set my own expectations and find my way of feeling grateful for getting through another year. Life is tough. Life is precious. Life is worth celebrating. Pull on those heels and go dancing for the sake of birthdays this weekend High Heelers, or just do whatever makes you feel special.

Have a wonderful week.

Cheers,
Jo

Don't forget to LIKE our FaceBook page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/High-Heelers/193781660675079
And if you really, really like us – send us out across your Social Networking Links – just click the appropriate icon below.