The unfairness of my birthday (for my siblings)

To my parents credit I have always loved when I was born, I never felt slighted at all. I thought it was very exciting that my birthday coincided with the day Santa happened to pop down our chimney and leave loads of presents under the Christmas tree. It was one of the reasons it took me so long NOT to believe in Santa Claus, I really feared it would ruin the birthday magic.

However, for my siblings the date of my birth was very inconvenient, at best. Just when the anticipation of Christmas was nearly too much there was one major hurdle for all my siblings to overcome: watching me open MY presents when they had so many under the tree. To irritate me they only referred to Christmas Eve as Christmas Eve, never mentioning my birthday. They also managed to convince our parents that they should get to open, at least, one present. This charge was led by my older sister, who by Christmas Eve knew all of her presents because she had unwrapped and re-wrapped them all, so she headed to the best present. She still can't stand to be surprised on Christmas and her husband has to go to great lengths so that she is surprised. One of my younger brothers', Tim was just grumpy, so anything he could do to irritate me on my birthday was fun for him. (Ya know, how a younger brother is supposed to act) and Andrew my youngest brother would go along with the majority, which never happened to play out in my favor, I might add. When everyone else was celebrating exciting things having to do with Christmas Eve, my siblings were forced to sing Happy Birthday and spend many Christmas Eve dinners at the only restaurants open: Chinese restaurants, Thai Restaurants and Indian restaurants. Is it a coincidence that these happen to be some of my favorite international cuisines? In our house, tradition states that the birthday kid gets to pick the restaurant, and needless to say my options were limited.

I apologize for unfairly getting more presents due to the timing of my birth and therefore having new toys to play with a whole twelve hours before you guys! I apologize for having an extra stocking that the hospital bundled me up in due to the timing of my birth. Sorry that I made my entrance into the world nine days late, and not listening when Mom told me that I was to "stay put" until after Christmas. And...I apologize for enjoying all the teasing that I put you guys through because I gleefully got to open presents, and eat my cake, and not let you guys open any presents (except for pajamas), and I made you guys wait to truly enjoy Christmas until my birthday was over...on Christmas day. And sorry for tattling on you guys to mom and dad when you referred to Christmas Eve as "Christmas Eve" instead of my birthday. I also apologize for threatening to write "Happy Birthday" on your Christmas present if you even thought of doubling up my present as a Birthday/Christmas present. I wanted TWO presents, thank you very much! So, thanks for putting up with me, your Christmas eve sibling or as they refer to me in German a "Christkind" ("Christ child" that definitely would have inflated my ego!)

So, to Tracy, Tim and Andrew- I love you guys with my heart and soul. You are free to celebrate Christmas Eve as you so choose this year! Tracy, you can open the biggest, bestest present (which won't surprise you in the least), Tim, please refer to the day as "Christmas Eve" ALL DAY LONG and Andrew...follow in Tracy and Tim's lead and do a little of both. I wish I was there to remind you all that it was MY birthday and not Christmas yet. Miss you and love you!!