The art of birthday giving

My poor mother laboured through her entire birthday until I was born close enough to one side of midnight for the obstetrician to ask her which day she wanted my birthday to be – her's or my own. My first birthday present to her was pretty awful.

By having children you really are just guaranteed to have ongoing suspicious birthday gifts for quite a few years. The pasta necklaces, that mums then wear to MacDonalds for breakfast is a global phenomenon.

Dad’s birthday fell on a weekend morning and I decided to make him a cup of tea, perhaps I realised that the pasta necklace I had made at preschool wasn’t going to be much of a hit. Knowing that I was not allowed to use the kettle, I turned on the hot tap and waited for it to heat up and popped in the Bell tea bag to brew. Luckily by the time I’d squeezed the bag with my, no doubt grubby fingers, spooned in the sugar and sploshed in some milk then walked down to the end of the house where my parents were still blissfully ignorant, the cups were half empty.

I knew enough not to climb over them with the hot mugs so imagine their joy as I sang happy birthday at the top of my lungs just as the sun kissed the sky. My toddler brother woke which made my poor, heavily pregnant mother, have to clamber out of bed to bring the happy gurgler into the party while Dad accepted the tepid tea with enough joy and honour to then make me think for the rest of my life that making him a cup of tea was the grandest thing I could ever do.

The disappointment of a shonky birthday present for the less grateful of us is a trial. I think my most shameful moment – well at least in the running for the title, was on my ninth birthday. I had been desperate to get a watch. I had hinted and wanted and obsessed about opening a slim box with this most adult accessory. Mum had told me that I would not be getting one, that a watch was a special gift for the tenth birthday. I was so sure that she was only saying this to increase the surprise. Oh woe when I was passed a gift too large to be my desire. Even more woe when I ripped of the paper to see not a trick box with something smaller inside but a red handbag.

I can remember looking at mum as if she had betrayed me and threw the bag to the ground and sat with arms folded, party hat askew and radiating all the disdain and fury that my newly 9yr old self could muster. When mum picked up the spurned gift and put it back on my lap she said with a trace of a giggle but sternly enough for my ‘here’s trouble’ radar to make me realise the folly of my ways, “It is a very nice handbag in your favourite colour.” I saw myself from afar and all the warnings of whatever big emotion you had on your birthday would decide the flavour of the year flooded into my memory. I think I remembered to say thank you and looked inside; found a 1$ note which made me wonder how much a watch cost.

I know exactly when my darling husband realises that my birthday is coming up. He asks in a panicky voice “What do you want for your birthday this year?” Always such a trial for those of us lucky enough to have everything we need and no intention to go into debt to make a big splash. We have embraced the experience gift which can be a bit of a trial. For Father’s day this year I bought M tickets to a Fawlty Towers theatre dinner. Of course audience participation is his favourite thing! He behaved with dignity and never mentioned the anticipatory ulcer forming in his gut.

We were on time but the last to arrive and were shown to seats right out in an aisle. I could see the muscles around his throat tighten.  Such a relief at the end when he hadn’t been the one that Manuel used as a climbing frame  when Basil told him to wait on the tables, a beautifully coiffured woman suffered that experience. Nor was he designated as the fire warden and told to leave the restaurant to shut down the alarm during a drill gone wrong like a poor young man there with his family who was clearly wishing he could just keep going to some hip nightclub somewhere. Nor were the false teeth in his soup or the knickers Basil ended up wearing on his head to be found under his chair. And as it was not his birthday he was not one of the lucky three that were sung to in a very amorous sort of way by Sibal. It was with great relief that we returned, unscathed, to the Audi for the drive home.

Oh his poor Audi – I backed into it on its 2^nd birthday. So when he asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year I replied – ‘Your slot at the smash repairer to be sooner’.

In the end, a trip to ‘Artisans in the Gardens’ the Friday before my birthday with a friend answered the question of what I would really get for my birthday. K and I discovered a print maker called Yaja Hadrys. She forages for leaves and has discovered how to steam out the essences of the plants to leave coloured impressions in wool and silk. The work and method were equally stunning. K and I had to go have a wander around the art gallery and a meal in the new building before eventually convincing ourselves that these pieces of art were well worth the status of gift that year. We duly agreed to put our share of each other’s birthday budget towards the purchases and enjoyed the half hour or more of our return visit to her stall to choose which wonder we would take home.

yajadesign.com.au

My birthday this year was full of excited year 7 and 8s sitting the English exam I had made for them and the finished scripts I got to take home for marking. A lovely student from my homeroom gave me flowers and another lovely Year 7 girl in my class had her birthday on the same day so we were sung to when I popped in to check to see if they had all managed to finish the paper. My girlfriends took me out to lunch and I was spoiled sweet by my family here and overseas. I feel just soo lucky to have a life shared with all these fabulous people. Maybe this is the year that I should buy a few lotto tickets or get a slip for the Melbourne Cup next Tuesday.

Wearing the scarf with flowers from Amelia T and 163 English scripts to mark.