One Good Birthday a Decade?

So I am now 34 – I am officially in my Mid-30’s…how the heck did that happen…

My birthday was Dec 31st…and I threw myself a party…

You see I hate when my birthday falls (Bitter – party of one) – I guess it could be worse my due date was Dec 24th but because I was stubborn and probably comfortable I overstayed my welcome by about 7 days…

My birth announcement – a copy of my parents tax form with the number 2 X’d out for # of dependants and 3 written in…I. Do. Not. Joke.

When I was a kid my birthday always got lumped in with X-mas..my presents were wrapped in holiday paper and better yet I always seemed to get the shaft from aunts and uncles…”oh here is $5 Merry X-mas and Happy Birthday” – whereas my brother and sister got the same $5…but when their birthdays rolled around they got a card WITH another $5…(Bitter – party of one)

Even better because my mother was so exhausted by the time X-mas was over my birthday was given a haphazard glance…I have had birthday cards SIGNED IN FRONT OF ME and then handed to me…I have had someone else’s leftover cake….my parents ALWAYS went out on my birthday (Moms reasoning – I wasn’t home when you were born…) and best yet when I was 17 I woke up and not one person mentioned my birthday ALL DAY…that year I just so happened to have my mothers Nordstroms card and went and bought myself a little present…(Bitter – party of one)

Now let me say I had a great childhood…other then the whole birthday thing I wouldn’t change hardly anything…

But I have resigned myself to the fact that I am only getting one good birthday party a decade…

0-10 – I am sure I had a decent party somewhere in there – my mother does have pictures of me blowing out a cake and various children in party hats surrounding me…so I would assume I had at least one decent party…the only thing I really remember is playing that stupid clothespin game – you know the one where you try to drop a clothespin into a jar while standing on a chair…OH…is that not a real game…?

11-20 – Now I will say I did get to have a 16th birthday…not on my actual birthday of course (cause remember my parents go out every New Years Eve)…and I had a ton of friends come over…the best gift – a 6 ft tall blow up Godzilla…yep that’s right…jealous much…the best part of that gift is the story that comes with it…see my friend Christy bought it for me and she thought it would be a good idea to blow it up before giving it to me…one small problem…it was a 6ft Godzilla and she had a vintage VW convertible beetle…Godzilla no fit…at least not with the top up…SO in the middle of January in cold Virginia she drops her top – straps in the blown up Godzilla and drives through town to my house…oh the site of a chick driving through town with a 6ft Godzilla as her passenger…

21-30 – ok I will admit turning 21 ON New Years Eve is pretty cool…Some friends and DH (then just a SO) went to a little bar in Northern Virginia to celebrate…because it was birthday they gave us the best booth in the joint…and well since it was my birthday I didn’t have to buy a single drink of my own…we managed to attract a lot of people to our booth – one of which was a very nice man who looked just like James Brown…looking back at the pictures that night I do believe he was in every single picture…a bunch of white chicks and James Browns’ doppelganger – complete with shiny party hat and fringed horn.

When I got back to college after Winter Break I was afforded another party thanks to my college friends…although that party ended with me passed out on DH’s fraternity house floor and realizing a few hours later I was STUCK to his floor…seriously…stuck. to. his. floor. I don’t remember much of that night other than sticking to the floor (because seriously who the hell wouldn’t remember that) as all the 3 Mile Islands I drank pretty much blotted out any shreds of memory I might have tried to retain

DH and I did attend a pretty cool party on New Years Eve 1999…a wedding of one of his Frat brothers…and yes we did party like it was 1999…only problem was we had just bought our house and money was pretty tight so we had to spend the night at my parents instead of getting a hotel room – that meant we had to drive – hence one of us (ME) had to remain sober…

31 – Present – so far this years party has been the best of this decade. We decided to have a Kid Friendly New Years Eve bash…so we told people to come over anytime after 4 – pizza would be at 6 followed by cake and a countdown at 7pm for all the kiddies…At the height of the celebration we had at least 20 kids under the age of 10 running through our house and just as many adults… yeah my house isn’t that big but we all managed to fit…Everyone had a great time and conversation flowed…I even got a few gifts – Yeah me…

Best yet – everyone had cleared out at about 8pm, DH and I cleaned up what little mess remained and were in bed by about 10pm…(I AM in my mid-30’s…isn’t that what old people are suppose to do – get to bed at a decent hour)…I will say the highlight of my night was a phone call I received at about 10:15 from a good friend of mine…she drunk dialed me on my birthday J … I can’t remember much of what she said other than to not have a hangover you have to drink lots of water to flush your system and then eat Kraft Macaroni and Cheese to absorb whatever alcohol is left…good to know I’ll have to try and remember that.