So my birthday is coming up. My mom and sisters will arrive on Friday for a celebratory weekend. I like how once you reach a certain age, your birthday tends to migrate to other days of the week for convenience. It kind of like Presidents’ Day: there’s the real one, and then there’s Presidents’ Day (celebrated). I wonder, at what age does it become acceptable to randomly rearrange the day of your birth? (I have a theory that it corresponds to the age at which it is legal to drink. And, while we’re getting parenthetical, why doesn’t this apply to other things, like anniversaries?)

My family, as I’m sure most families do, has a few traditions surrounding birthdays. Though in our case, they really shouldn’t be called “traditions” as they’re more like the sacred rites of our people. One such is that we always, always eat out at the place of our choosing on our birthday, and the birthday boy or girl never, never pays a cent. This is basically an extension of the fact that the star of the show isn’t allowed to pay for anything at all during the celebrations. I quite like this tradition. (This is what I’ve chosen for my birthday dinner this year.)

Another of our rites is the entire way we celebrate birthdays, as if they were a holiday of great import. It’s come to my attention that we’re fairly unique in this, as in many other ways. I know, like the movements of the tides and the changing of the seasons, that I will see my entire immediate family at least six times a year, no matter how far apart we may live. Those are Christmas, Thanksgiving, and each of our birthdays. The idea of just sending a gift in the mail, or a card, is something so alien to my family as to seem incomprehensible.

I remember when this particular eccentricity was first pointed out to me. The year after we met, Dan and I were cuddled up the night after his birthday celebrations had drawn to a close. It had been relatively low-key, only a few friends and family over for dinner and laughter one night and then a day out on the town doing all of the things we “should get around to.” He contemplatively informed me that no one had made that much fuss about his birthday since his age was in the single digits. I was startled by his laughter. He swears he saw “does not compute” blinking in the air above my head.

Another, personal tradition of mine is to have no idea what the hell I want whenever someone asks me. Usually, the first person to ask is greeted with a blank stare and “Oh, my birthday is coming up, isn’t it?” (It’s usually my sister Heather. As the most anal of us, she plans everything ahead in an admirable, if almost pathological, way.) Thankfully, my family is sneaky, and has learned to anticipate this. I’m always presented with a gift I may have mentioned in passing eight months prior. They work in collusion, as well; it matters not whose company in which I mention wanting something, they will soon all know of it.

This year will be no different. Other than an amazon wishlist populated with fiction that my local library does not have in its collection, no guidance has been given. And I will be startled and delighted by gifts I’ve forgotten I wanted. This only after gorging myself on the cuisine of my choosing, and having me every whim indulged, while surrounded by the people I love most. This is the only way to do a birthday.