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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Birthdays at home are great!

So, tomorrow's my birthday. (Yea! Happy birthday me!) I was born on my father's birthday. For the whole of my life, until my father's passing, birthdays were always a shared event. We alternated who got to pick the cake flavor, which is really kind of funny, because we both always chose chocolate. Our birthday celebrations always included dinner out in a restaurant. This was just a "given" in our family.

Fast forward many years. For our kids birthdays, we usually enjoy a restaurant meal. This year, for our son, we went to a local Chinese restaurant for dinner -- a remarkable deal, as the 5 of us can share 3 entrees and still feel full. For our daughters, we used a gift card to Olive Garden (a birthday gift to me from last year), and went in late afternoon and ordered appetizers to share before going home for ice cream, cake and tea. This outing was free to us, as the gift card even covered the tip. I like taking the kids out on their birthdays. It gives them the opportunity to learn about dining out etiquette, how to figure the tip, and they get to enjoy being waited on for that one evening, with no kitchen cleanup duties afterwards.

But for my husband and myself, dinner out hasn't been something that we do on a regular basis. In the past, I admit, I have moped a bit about not eating out on my birthday. But when I sat down to really think about it, I realized that I actually prefer dining at home on my birthday, even when I bake my own cake and cook my own birthday dinner.

I'll tell you why I now think birthdays at home are so great.
  • I get exactly what I want for dinner, and prepared the way I want it. I spend weeks thinking long and hard about the perfect birthday dinner menu. I've been craving beef for several months. So, this year's menu is mushroom and cheese burgers, onion rings, oven fries, creamy rhubarb gelatin salad and Boston cream pie. My husband's birthday is next week. He loooooves fish. Me, not so much. But for his birthday, he gets fish. We'll be using some of the smoked salmon from the freezer for a fish-filled dinner that night. I go to a lot of effort to make home birthday dinners as delicious as can be. I won't be making ice cream, but I will make a Boston cream pie. The cake layers are already in the freezer. Everything will be made with soy milk, so that I can enjoy it without side effects. It's not possible to specify that everything be cooked and baked with soy milk in most restaurants.
  • It's relaxed at home. No wait staff singing birthday wishes and embarrassing me. No stresses over how much everything will cost and then the tip. It's my day and if I want to just wear sweats and hair in a ponytail, then that's totally fine. The rest of the family has been in class or at work all day and they want a relaxed evening, as well.
  • We can work everyone's schedules into a meal at home. When birthdays fall on weekdays, this matters. My daughters and husband will be coming from downtown Seattle and my son will be coming from the east side of Lake Washington. Getting home in the evening can be unpredictable. Even if someone isn't home yet, we can start dinner, and include them when they do get here.
  • I can take the money that would have been spent on dinner in a restaurant and do something long-lasting instead. Dinner out is a fleeting enjoyment. I think I'd rather have a few pretty things for the same cost as if we'd eaten out.
While eating out can be a fun indulgence, for the time being I'll just keep reminding myself of the many reasons birthdays at home can be great, too.

How do you like to celebrate your own birthdays? Is eating out the norm in your family? Or do you have a special meal at home? What would the perfect birthday dinner menu look like for your birthday?



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