day 23 - birthdays

A friend of mine is having a baby.  Quite possibly as you read this.  Which is lovely isnt it?  But also, well, ' a Christmas baby' always feels a little bit of a shame somehow because we know that person is going to spend the rest of their lives having to have their birthday and Christmas celebrations all mixed up together.  I have one friend who was born on Christmas Day.   And several who have their brithdays within a couple of days of the 25th.   For some reason this year my attention has been drawn to all these special December birthdays in the run up to celebrating the most significant birthday of all.  And I started to wonder why we celebrate birthdays at all.

If you think about it it seems a bit..... random.    Why celebrate the date of our birth?  Why celebrate the birth of Jesus?   What is so important about birthdays?

I did a bit of research.   Apparently ( and fairly obviously when you think about it) birthdays didnt start to be celebrated until the notion of the calendar was instituted.  And at first they seem to be connected to the ancient Egyptians celebrating the ' birth' of their gods.   Im guessing that in times when infant mortality was staggeringly high and the average life expectancy very low, reaching another year's milepost was definitely worth celebrating.  During the Roman era ordinary people ( men not women) started celebrating birthdays but it was only in the 4th century that the Church began to celebrate the birth of Jesus and over subsequent centuries we have added cakes and candles and cards and songs and all the things we now associate with celebrating the anniversaries of our births. Oh and women are now allowed to celebrate too 😀

Birth is an absolute miracle.  As Im typing Im also getting an update from the hospital on the progress of my friend who is mid way through labour and will be having her Christmas baby very soon.  Amazing. Every baby is amazing.  Every conception and birth is astonishing.  So looking back to remember that amazing day each year and being thankful for the life of the person concerned is appropriate I guess.   But perhaps we miss the point with birthdays.  Rather than celebrating the person, maybe we should be celebrating the God who put them together in their mother's womb.  The God who, before the foundation of the world, had conceived of works that only they could do and had called them into being for a reason.  The God who decided on the hair and eye colour, the height and weight, the calling and gifts for each one.  And who has our days written in His book.  All we have to do is to keep breathing in and out.  God does all the rest, every second of every day of every week month and year.

Today I shall be wishing a good friend of mine Happy Birthday.  And I shall hopefully be sending a new born baby my prayers and love as they make their way into the world all fresh and new and perfect.  And on Wednesday I shall be remembering the birth of the Saviour of the world.  I think this year, in each case, I might just stop to say thank you.  To the God who made each of my lovely friends, every precious baby and my wonderful Jesus.