Thursday, January 13, 2011

Birthdays

I've inadvertently spent the past week rounding up lost birthdays.

Where's The Party?

I spent the first two years of my marriage religiously sending out birthday cards to friends and family, and then parenthood happened.  I've finally convinced myself to let go of perfectionism, and that sending a text or an email is better than nothing.  (I have a horrible "do it right or don't do it at all" tendency).  So my one and only New-Years resolution was to round up birthdates again and hopefully find a groove for doing something about them.  I think I've decided to break the birthdays into categories (Gift/Card/Email/token facebook wishes).  I'd like to put most people under gift or card, but that would clearly be too cost prohibitive.  Someday, I tell you, money will not keep me from being who I really am.
So I'm wondering, in the midst of my ambition, if anyone has any tips for staying on top of birthdays.  I think most of us have known at least one lovely and thoughtful person who never forgets a birthday and always sends something thoughtful.  I want to be that lady.  Only I also want to have charming handwriting and always smell nice and never be covered in baby spit-up.  So, technically I'm settling.

5 comments:

hairyshoefairy said...

I'm always so bad about birthdays. I know my kids and immediate family but beyond that I only know two friends' birthdays which are only a few days apart. Even when I notice them on FB I don't really do much about it, usually. I think it's a great aspiration. I, too, dream of a day when money won't prevent me from being who I am.

Anonymous said...

My mom is one of those people, but she is also juuuust on this side of having a pretty good sized OCD problem. I, in theory, think that a onepage calendar breaking all of the important dates into month groupings (all the January birthdays go HERE with the actual date following it) would be the most straightforward and quickest way to assemble the dates. I say this in theory because I have yet to actually DO it and I just missed one of my best friend's birthdays entirely. I do think remembering everyone's birthdays is a bit overrated- I think sometimes my mom wishes she could let go of some of them since they never send her anything back. (I think you have to really want to do it just for the sake of being thoughtful. I mean, hey, you and I have both brought three magnificent children into the world- what else do people want from us??) But she feels a strong sense of obligation now to keeping the cards going. If I can hit the big ones, that's impressive in my book. But it is a lovely thought. Good luck! ~Cheryl

Anonymous said...

Making cards is not terribly hard. You can find easy tutorials online.

Em said...

Yes, but my birthday list is nearing 300 people...... that's a lot of card-making, let alone postage!

--jeff * said...

em, ever since that day that you called to make sure i was ok because i wasn't in film theory that morning, you have been "that lady."
and i still have many of the cards that you've made for me.

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