The Birthday Month

Around these parts, anyway, (Northeastern U.S.) this time of year is a tad difficult for making plans.  Those polar vortexes invade.  Or yet another nor'easter storm.  Your driveway is iced.  The town hasn't yet sanded your street.  Or plowed it.  You don't want to commit to going out anywhere or to even having people come in if you're going to do a slippy-slidey down the street or only be able to offer them a snowbank-on-a-hill in which to park.  Then, too, you have to be sure your front walk isn't icy.  And if you don't have a garage (I do) you have to get out there and dig your car out of whatever blizzard has just passed.

So ... not a super time weather-wise for birthdays.  Of course, this time of year, fireplaces are cozy if you have one (I don't).  And mugs of hot chocolate.  And gatherings indoors when it's all blizzardy outdoors can be charming.  We used to play cards.  And congregate around the piano.  But even more all-encompassing than the weather, this month gets swallowed up with ... ta dah:  The Holidays!  Hoop-la galore.  Craft open studios.  Book sales.  Church bazaars.  Choir concerts.  Social gatherings.  In other words, the works.

It seems amusing, then, that December also seems to be the birthday month, at least by my reckoning.  Without even doing any research, I can come up with nineteen people I know (including myself) with December birthdays.  I don't know nineteen people who have October or July or March birthdays.  In fact at one time, we celebrated four birthdays plus Christmas in the space of one month.  We always felt that we'd done splendidly--not making anyone feel left out--but, in the end, we admitted to a degree of exhaustion.

However you play it, a salute to December birthdays!