Birthday celebrations...

Lately i have been asked by a few people in my family why I don't celebrate birthdays. I have given them a generic answer, since I really needed to think about it. I was raised to believe that celebrating birthdays was wrong, and that it made God upset. To back up these teachings we were shown stories in the Bible where bad things such as one man losing his head at the request of the birthday girl and the such. I don't know if I still fall for those reasons. I will tell you though that when something is ingrained into you from an early age, it seems to stick around, no matter the reason or explanation.

There are however stronger reasons why I did not celebrate birthdays when I was younger even if I thought I could do it behind my parents back. I did have a fear of displeasing God, but along with that came the following reasons.

When i was about 6 or 7 years old my best friend, Junior, was having a birthday party in front of his house, he lived 2 doors away from me, and considering that I lived in a row house, that was not to far away. I recall telling him I could not go. I sat in front of my house watching all the activities. Well when it came time to beat-up the pinata, all the kids lined up to take their turn. I was watching thinking, "Man I bet I could hit that thing and break it." But I just watched. All of a sudden Dona Maria, Junior's mother came and took me by the hand to where the pinata was and handed me the stick and told me to hit it. I told her that I could not, and that my parents would be angry. She insisted I go on and hit the thing. Well, I did. I don't remember if I dented the thing or not, since immediately I heard my father yelling out my name. I dropped the stick and knew I was in for it. In for it is an understatement. I got whipped and punished. On another occasion I had saved up $4, and while at our religious meeting I was planning on how to spend it. I decided I was going to buy a chocolate cake and bring it home and my sister and I could eat the whole thing. I asked my mother if once we got home I could go to Albano's bakery and buy something. She said fine, she probably thought I was going to buy my regular bag of candy coated almonds, or my favorite sugar twist, but no I was going to buy a cake. I had just enough money. When I got to the bakery the lady recognized me right away and asked me what I wanted, I told her I wanted a yellow cake with whipped cream filling and chocolate frosting. She told me she had just sold the last one. As I was leaving she called me back in and told me that she just remembered she had one in the back that someone had ordered and never picked up. She said she would put it in a box for me. I was so happy I got my cake. Well, I hurried home and placed the box on the table then I went to take off my coat. I came back in to the kitchen and called my sister and told her I had bought a cake for us. I started to open the box. First you had to remove the string which was tied around the box, as I did this my mom and dad came and stood over us to see what I had bought. Well to my shock, My father told me to go to my room immediately. I did not have a clue of what I did wrong. I quickly found out. I heard him yelling and telling my mom to throw the stupid cake away. Which she did. Then I heard him say how I was going to get it for buying a birthday cake. Well, apparently the cake no one had picked up said Happy Birthday on it. I got a lecture and a whipping. No matter how many times I said I did not know what the cake said it did not make a difference.

I don't blame my parents since this is what they believed, and my dad still believes, but now that I am older I wonder if I don't celebrate birthdays for the religious reasons I was given or because of the sour memories I have regarding birthdays. I don't know. I cannot honestly say that I will never celebrate a birthday or not, only time will tell. For right now I must honestly say that a deep guilty feeling comes over me when I even consider celebrating one....