Happy Halfway Day
My wife was a Christmas baby. As a child, she never had birthday parties on the actual anniversary of her birth. Her parents knew better than to invite a bunch of Julie’s school friends over to the house on December 25th for cake and ice cream and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Those children were too busy having a merry Christmas to care much about whether or not Julie had a happy birthday. To keep Julie from feeling deprived, however, her parents threw a birthday party for her on or about June 25th of each year. Her friends and family members brought presents to her, everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to her, and her parents presented her with a cake that had the appropriate number of candles planted in it. Everyone knew, of course, that this wasn’t her actual birthday but her “half birthday,” or maybe her “halfway day.” But all of Julie’s friends and their parents were happy to go along with this harmless little deception.
My wife didn’t tell me about this bygone ritual until just a few years ago. When I heard about it, I felt awful, as though I had forgotten her birthday for twenty-five consecutive years. I went off by myself and wrote a sonnet in commemoration of all those lost halfway parties we might have celebrated.
THE FICTITIOUS BIRTHDAY
When you were young your parents threw a fete
The final Saturday of every June,
With cake and gifts – a lovely afternoon –
To make up for the one you didn’t get
Because your birthday fell on Christmas day.
Eventually they halted these fictitious
Birthdays (no more candles, no more wishes)
When other childish things were put away.
That ghostly birthday passes every year
But wispier, a whiter shade of gray.
We ought to celebrate it while it’s here
But foolishly we let it slip away.
For that’s the way most childhood fictions go:
We shut our eyes, we make a wish, we blow…
Although it’s a bit melancholy, Julie liked the poem. She said it made up for all the lost parties. But I wasn’t convinced. I began asking her for more details of her fictitious birthdays. Did they replace the previous birthday or the coming birthday? Did she get any birthday presents on Christmas or were they all delayed until June? Did she get a birthday cake on Christmas or only in June? How old was she when the practice was discontinued? To all of these questions, Julie’s answer was: “I don’t remember any more. It was a long time ago. Let it drop.” But I couldn’t let it drop. I made a mental note to myself that I would never let another June 25th pass without observing Julie’s fictitious birthday in some way. Maybe I’d bake her a “Happy Halfway Day” cake. Maybe I’d throw her a little party. At the very least I’d buy her a few presents.
Alas, mental notes are only as good as the mind they are jotted on. In my case, a Post-It note probably would have been more reliable. For three consecutive years, I didn’t give a thought to Julie’s halfway day until I woke up on the morning of June 25th and saw the date on the calendar. By which time, of course, it was too late to do anything that didn’t smack of being thrown together at the last second. But finally, this year, I was prepared to throw her a halfway day party the likes of which she hadn’t seen in more than forty years. I planned to bake her a halfway cake. I planned to tell my stepdaughters to set up some sort of ruse that would justify having the entire family gather at one of Julie’s favorite restaurants on June 25th. I was going to buy her presents. I was going to atone for all those lost halfway days of the past.
But before I could put my plan into action, Julie came home one night earlier this month and told me, “Don’t make any plans for the night of June 25th.” When I asked her why, she explained that my stepdaughter Andrea was planning to throw a surprise birthday party for her daughter Mallory on that date. “But Mal’s birthday is July 3rd. Why not throw her a surprise party on the third?” Well, as it turns out, Mal’s birthday often gets subordinated to other people’s Fourth of July plans. A lot of her school friends go out of town with their families – to Tahoe, to the coast, to Disneyland – and thus it is often difficult to gather enough guests to guarantee a good party on July 3rd. What’s more, this will be Mal’s sixteenth birthday party. That’s often a very special occasion in a young girl’s life. Oftentimes it’s the occasion of her last real birthday party. After that, she tends to get treated like a grown-up on her birthday: a card, some presents, a cake – but no big backyard bash or slumber party with all of her school friends. And so, to make sure that Mal’s Sweet Sixteen party was well-attended, Andrea scheduled it for the middle of a week in which there would be no other major events with which it would have to compete. As a result, the halfway party I was planning to throw for Julie today, had to be abandoned. I knew that Julie wouldn’t want me to do anything that might draw attention away from Mal’s big day, so I decided to put off celebrating her halfway day for yet another year. For years her birthday parties were preempted by Christmas. Now, curiously, the Fourth of July and Mallory’s Sweet Sixteen party had conspired to preempt her halfway party. Such is life.
But even though I can’t throw her a party today, I have bought a few presents for her. The economy being what it is, I couldn’t afford to splurge on anything luxurious. Instead I bought her a dvd of “New In Town,” a romantic comedy that was a flop with critics but a hit with Julie; a new book called “The Story Sisters,” by Alice Hoffman, one of her favorite writers; and a cast-iron aebleskiver pan, for those mornings when an ordinary pancake just won’t do. Alas, I can’t bake her a cake, because there will be enough tempting sweets at Mal’s party this evening. But on Saturday morning, I am planning to make her our first-ever home-made aebleskivers (a Danish treat that is a cross between a pancake and a muffin). Who knows, maybe I’ll stick a candle in one of them and sing “Happy Birthday” to her. Or should that be “Halfway Birthday”?