The time Jesus stole my birthday

Birthdays are great aren’t they? That one special day when it’s all about you and everyone is nice to you and you can do whatever the hell you want.

Not for me.

I’ve had the unfortunate luck of being born at the beginning of April, along with apparently the entire population of the world.

Maybe it was all that summer loving that people get up in the month of August or maybe there’s truth in the notion that women are more fertile in that period and more likely to get pregnant and have their babies in the spring so they have the best chance of survival (hey I read it somewhere). Whatever it is, there are an inordinate amount of people born in the first week of April.

For instance, a brief rundown of the people whose birthday it is in the next few days;

Middle nephew – yesterday (1st April)
Best friend – Saturday (3rd April)
Me and my brother-in-law – Sunday (4th April)
Eldest nephew – Monday (5th April)

Do you have any idea how annoying it is to have to buy people other presents around the time of your own birthday? And even worse have to give them to someone?! It’s wrong. The day is supposed to be about you. If I’m honest I think the whole week should be about you but apparently that makes me sound spoilt.

Really I blame my sister for all this. She’s the one who chose to marry someone who shared the same birthday as me and then, as if that wasn’t enough, she selfishly goes and gets pregnant and has offspring on virtually the same days (actually the birth of Eldest Nephew is particularly funny seeing as my brother-in-law had been out for his birthday the night before, remind me to tell you that one some time). I mean it’s not really on is it – I was here first after all. Well, technically my brother-in-law was here first, by a good twenty years, but that’s irrelevant.

And I mean these are just the people that are particularly close to me. Our old next door neighbour was on the 4th. My Mum’s best friend is on the 4th. There were 2 girls in my class, one on the 4th and one on the 5th. My friend’s sister is on the 4th. There is hardly anybody who, on finding out the date of birthday, doesn’t go “Oh I know someone whose birthday is then!” And today I discover that Tabiboo is getting on the act with her birthday on the 3rd and Mr T’s birthday today!

There’s no escape.

Sometimes being born at this time of year can have its advantages – I was only ever at school once on my birthday (for my 18th and that was a half day) because it was always the Easter holidays but that actually just made birthdays pretty quiet because people were always on holiday or doing Eastery things.

Ah yes. Easter.

Easter has raised its ugly head once more. I mean it’s inevitable, you can’t escape Easter interfering with things if you’re born at this time of year. I was born on an Easter Monday after all. But this year, my birthday is not only NOT just about me but it’s been completely hijacked by Jesus. Like I can compete with some dude rising from the dead. Thanks a lot for stealing my thunder Jebus.

Of course everybody is busy doing Eastery things so no one was available to party like a rockstar with me, which is ridiculous because it’s a bank holiday and we could so have gone out and drunk the drinks and been hungover all day Monday, but alas it was not to be.

And, because half my fricking family have their birthday at the same time as me, I tend to get stolen away to do family things. You would not believe how many arguments there have been because I’ve wanted to celebrate my birthday in Hull, with friends, and haven’t been able to because that would make me the worst Auntie in the world ever.

So this is my way of saying goodbye to you for a few days. We are off down to my sister’s to do Eastery/family/birthday things.

No doubt I’ll come back with some stories to tell. AND I’LL BE A YEAR OLDER.

Just in case that one had passed you by.