Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should just do what you’re doing and celebrate with family and cake on Christmas.

Then plan a half birthday party in June. It will be a lot more fun for your kid than trying to squeeze in a winter party.

Don't try to do this. This is ridiculous.

+1

Not only is it ridiculous, but it won’t help much. While it might work short-term in daycare (although people will think it’s weird), when he starts school, everyone will be going their separate ways for summer. I had a June birthday.

School lets out mid-June where we are. When people say, have the party in June, they mean before the end of the school year, of course.

Sure, but 6 months from Christmas puts the 1/2 birthday on June 25, by which time most schools have already let out in mid-June. If you’re going to have to scooch the party date around the half birthday to get it in before the end of school, you might as well scooch it around the actual birthday to have the party in January.

OP what you will realize as your kid gets older and he attends more bday parties is that it is completely common for parents to end up scheduling the "friend/class" party a couple weeks off from the actual birth date even if that date is not right around a major holiday. This is due to a whole host of reasons - the venue was already booked, kid had his own conflict with sports or other activities, a friend/classmate already had a party that date, a relative (like grandparents) had conflicts, and on and on...

So if you have a class bday party for your Christmas baby in, say, mid January, you'll basically be no different than everyone else whose kids' birthdays are any random day of the year.

I'll add that January is actually a great month for scheduling kid bday parties because most folks are not particularly busy and have few conflicts -- even a lot of sports stuff is lighter. Only downside is it needs to be an indoor party, but whatever.

So have your family celebration with the separate cake on you child's actual birthday, and then have a class/friend party (when child is older) a couple weeks later in January. (And you can do no gifts if that's your thing, but you don't need to just because your child was born around Christmas.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should just do what you’re doing and celebrate with family and cake on Christmas.

Then plan a half birthday party in June. It will be a lot more fun for your kid than trying to squeeze in a winter party.

Growing up my friend's younger brother had a Christmas birthday, they always celebrated his half birthday.

Adding to this, I don't know how that started, but the brother definitely pushed the idea each year. It might have been the parents idea at first but then they just let him run with it.

Anonymous wrote:I think you should just do what you’re doing and celebrate with family and cake on Christmas.

Then plan a half birthday party in June. It will be a lot more fun for your kid than trying to squeeze in a winter party.

Growing up my friend's younger brother had a Christmas birthday, they always celebrated his half birthday.

For a toddler, no, but when they get older do it in earlier December or mid to late January. I once had my October kid's birthday in February once sports settled down.

OP I don't have specific advice but wanted to speak to your general stress over this, especially on top of general holiday stress.

My kid has an August birthday which I discovered can be tricky for a variety of reasons, and can make it hard to do birthdays the way other kids do them. At first this was hard and we had a couple years where my kid's birthday was a bit of a let down because she wanted it to look the same as her friends who had school year birthdays and it just... didn't. No classroom cupcakes, no "class party" with just kids from her school classroom.

And then one year (around K) we hit on a tradition that works for her and for us and is feasible to do in August and she loves it. It doesn't look like other kids' birthdays which is fine because her birthday is at a different time of year and what other kids do wouldn't work for her birthday. She loves how she celebrates. And over the years we've discovered that a lot of families with summer birthdays have kids of different traditions for this reason. Also eventually the classroom and all-class parties go away anyway, even for kids with school year birthdays.

My point is that this seems stressful now but basically resolves itself, even if you wind up muddling through the preschool years with birthdays that are sort of an approximation of what other kids do but also somehow not as satisfying because of when your kid's birthday is. You just figure it out. Stay positive and your kid will too.

Anonymous wrote:
I don't know why there's a poster who is so against scheduling the party at another time, but it's very frequent. My two kids, 5 years apart, have their birthdays less than two weeks apart, and for many years, we pushed back the parties because it was too much. I know summer birthday kids who schedule their parties purposefully during the school year so their friends can make it. My cousin's birthday is on Dec 24th, and she always had a party at a different time.

IT'S ALL FINE.

You have no idea what other people are thinking.

OP, if you have a Christmas baby, teach him/ her to embrace it. A party in June does the opposite of that.

As they grow up, they will most likely always have family around to celebrate. How lucky is that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should just do what you’re doing and celebrate with family and cake on Christmas.

Then plan a half birthday party in June. It will be a lot more fun for your kid than trying to squeeze in a winter party.

Don't try to do this. This is ridiculous.

+1

Not only is it ridiculous, but it won’t help much. While it might work short-term in daycare (although people will think it’s weird), when he starts school, everyone will be going their separate ways for summer. I had a June birthday.

School lets out mid-June where we are. When people say, have the party in June, they mean before the end of the school year, of course.

+1. We've been to half birthday parties in August for similar reasons (during school not daycare), and it didn't seem ridiculous.

I don't know why there's a poster who is so against scheduling the party at another time, but it's very frequent. My two kids, 5 years apart, have their birthdays less than two weeks apart, and for many years, we pushed back the parties because it was too much. I know summer birthday kids who schedule their parties purposefully during the school year so their friends can make it. My cousin's birthday is on Dec 24th, and she always had a party at a different time.

IT'S ALL FINE.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should just do what you’re doing and celebrate with family and cake on Christmas.

Then plan a half birthday party in June. It will be a lot more fun for your kid than trying to squeeze in a winter party.

Don't try to do this. This is ridiculous.

+1

Not only is it ridiculous, but it won’t help much. While it might work short-term in daycare (although people will think it’s weird), when he starts school, everyone will be going their separate ways for summer. I had a June birthday.

School lets out mid-June where we are. When people say, have the party in June, they mean before the end of the school year, of course.

For family, you can continue celebrating during holidays and once your child is in school and you’re inviting school friends, then could do it mid-January.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should just do what you’re doing and celebrate with family and cake on Christmas.

Then plan a half birthday party in June. It will be a lot more fun for your kid than trying to squeeze in a winter party.

Don't try to do this. This is ridiculous.

No, it's brilliant. The party is in June, and the birthday is acknowledged in a low-key way the day of. No one wants yet another party in December and everyone is partied out in January.

This will start to matter once your child is in grade school, OP, because they'll see other kids' parties and they want one of their own. For right now, you can just continue to have the low-key acknowledgement.

No one wants another party in June, either. Especially when it's not a real birthday.

Don't be stupid. There are birthdays in every month, but December is chock full of holiday parties too.

I have attended parties for children which were scheduled very far from their actual birthdays. Nobody minds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should just do what you’re doing and celebrate with family and cake on Christmas.

Then plan a half birthday party in June. It will be a lot more fun for your kid than trying to squeeze in a winter party.

Don't try to do this. This is ridiculous.

No, it's brilliant. The party is in June, and the birthday is acknowledged in a low-key way the day of. No one wants yet another party in December and everyone is partied out in January.

This will start to matter once your child is in grade school, OP, because they'll see other kids' parties and they want one of their own. For right now, you can just continue to have the low-key acknowledgement.

While I think it’s fine to celebrate on their half birthday I disagree that everyone is partied out. My kids do not make any connection between a friends bday party in January with holiday parties in December. My DD has a mid Jan birthday and always has a good turnout especially when we celebrate early in the month. Most people are not traveling and there doesn’t seem to be as many sports conflicts as the fall or spring. Parents are happy to have something to entertain their kids while it’s cold outside (especially when parties become drop off).

I have a kid born on Christmas day and we typically host a party for friends the 2nd weekend in January and get good turnout. I send out invites before kids go on winter break (ES age). We celebrate it as a family on Christmas day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should just do what you’re doing and celebrate with family and cake on Christmas.

Then plan a half birthday party in June. It will be a lot more fun for your kid than trying to squeeze in a winter party.

Don't try to do this. This is ridiculous.

+1

Not only is it ridiculous, but it won’t help much. While it might work short-term in daycare (although people will think it’s weird), when he starts school, everyone will be going their separate ways for summer. I had a June birthday.