to hate " double " gift ( b'day and xmas)

[pud1]

why oh why do people tell december bithdays that instead of buying a you a birthday gift and xmas gift they will just give you one for both. they are never any better. it really pisses me off. i also dont want my birthday gift wrapped in xmas paper.
next year i am going to do it back. i am going to tell them in july that they will have to wait til xmas for there birthday gift

I don't get overly stressed about Christmas wrapping paper on a present though - as long as there is a present

Nicely done Flib!!

My birthday is New Years day. I sometimes got joint pressies but not always - but I still only had to write one thank-you letter and I never have to work on it. Downside is that DH and DD have a hard time trying to find somewhere open to take me for birthday lunch.

In our family we have these birthdays:
MIL 18 Dec
Nephew 21 Dec
DH 24 Dec
Me 27 Dec (hi Personal Clown, I will think of you on my b'day!)
My bro 29 Dec

But it is fine. The advantage is no-one forgets as they are thinking about cards/presents anyway. The joint present thing is jolly useful for DH as he has stupidly expensive tastes...

Having said that - we have 2 DSs and both have birthdays in July. Deliberate? Absolutely!

Ooooh I've never known anyone who shares my birthday!
I'll think of you too Molly.

My 2 small boys are 3 and 5 on the 17th of December and I think people now know NOT to get joint presents of any kind for them Whether it be joint birthday/xmas or joint birthday presents for them to share. They may share a birthday and it may be near Christmas, but it is a special day for each of them.

I make a big fuss of their birthdays and love doing a party for them. It's mad, but fun (have just spent the last hour writing invites)

I also have DH on 1st Jan and DS1 on 11th Jan!!!

I actually think I did enough of a favour for everyone anyway, after all they only need to remember the one date for 2 children

So, Squirdle, what's so romantic about 17th March then?

I always had 1 gift

Hated it

No idea Molly, but we are always very careful abstain completely around March now

If their birthday is in July, just wrap their pressie up in Christmas paper and give it to them and write on the card 'happy birthday and happy Christmas!'

Then at Christmas tell them you already gave their Christmas pressie "combined" with birthday in July!

I thought the OP would be about children! Do you really still get birthday presents from anyone other than parents, dh and dcs I can't beleive you have spent your whole life bitter about this!!

pmsl flib
I am liking that very much

My mother's birthday is around Christmas and she always made it very plain to us that she had suffered throughout her childhood from the 'ooh, this is for Christmas and your birthday too' brigade. I would never dare to wrap her birthday present in Christmas paper!

My baby is due on 2nd Jan and i'm really worried people will do this. I always said i'd never have a baby around xmas, lol. Didn't work out.

pud1 - you have my sympathies. My birthday is on 24th - it didn't really seem to matter when I was a child, but as I've got older, it's got worse !! My pet hate is also birthday pressies wrapped in Xmas paper and birthday cards sent in the envelope with an Xmas card

It rather annoys me when people send me b'day card separately - seems like a waste of paper and stamp! And mum precedes it with anniversary card a few days before xmas...

well I know that logically it makes sense to put both cards in the same envelope. But I don't want to open birthday cards until my birthday !

Emsmum, in that sense we use it to our advantage and do send joint birthday/christmas thankyou cards, seems silly to send one for each!

All they need to do is get the later card smaller than the earlier one and put it, in its envelope, inside the bigger envelope.
Some people manage to figure this out...

Do you find that some people wait to see you at christmas to give birthday gifts too, instead of sending them? I wouldn't care one jot if it was me, but for the little ones....

My dh's birthday is on Boxing day and he hardly ever gets separate presents apart from mine and dcs. If he does, its usually a wash bag, deodorant set, socks, etc, etc, wrapped in xmas paper. Even mil does this!!!

Although he doesn't mind now, he says he hated his b'day when he was small cos he never got to see his pals cos they were all away visiting families etc

ds1 is 27th Dec and it's never happened to him! In fact I've got friends who always remember him at the right time but sometimes forget ds2 who is in July. So ds2 ends up getting his present on ds1's birthday with an apologetic note from my friends!

ds1 has always loved having his bd at Christmas - he thinks it's really special, but maybe that's because we've always made a big effort to keep it separate.

My FIL's birthday is New Year's Day, and his complaint is that everyone is always too hung over to celebrate his birthday. Fair complaint, nobody wants to go out for a loud boozy party on the night of 1 January.

Yes, it can be crap but never really bothered me when I was growing up, perhaps because my birthday, the 20th (December, obviously), was always celebrated separately from Christmas. We always put the tree up the weekend before my birthday so that it was up for my party. My cards went on the windowsill and Christmas cards went on the hearth.

Now I'm older and am a miserable scrooge and can barely be arsed to celebrate either this yr. But think it only fair that children get to celebrate their birthday as just that - their birthday.