Birthday Tradition

[Psalm98]

My little boy is turning 1 soon. When I was growing up, my mother gave me carnations each year on my birthday - there was one carnation per year of my age (i.e on my 5th birthday she gave me five carnations).

I want to start something like that for my son. I probably won’t use flowers, though. I’d do something a bit more “masculine.” Any ideas?

 

[grasscutter]

How about a coin or stamp minted/issued in each year? Of course, that would be probably just be one each year instead of multiplying (unless that’s what you wanted to do).

I realize a baby/small child won’t understand, but when he turns 20, it could be a lovely collection.

 

[Kelfa28]

Hubby and I have committed to buying our daughters an 1/4 of an ounce of gold every year for their birthdays.

 

[nodito]

I don’t think a young child will appreciate it, but for one birthday my parents purchased a modest amount of individual stocks in fun companies like Amazon, Yahoo, etc. You could pick a company each year to represent that child’s recent interest (like a trucking company if he’s into trucks, B&N if he likes to read.)

You could do your carnation idea but using balloons, one balloon for each year.

One of my roommates in college had a fun birthday tradition that she shared with us. Her parents would wrap her kitchen chair in colorful paper so when she came down in the morning she could unwrap something right away. We ran with it and wrapped up a birthday desk, a birthday chair, a birthday stapler, a birthday shampoo bottle, etc whenever it was one of our roommates’ birthdays.

 

[Petaro]

How about a coin or stamp minted/issued in each year? Of course, that would be probably just be one each year instead of multiplying (unless that’s what you wanted to do).

I realize a baby/small child won’t understand, but when he turns 20, it could be a lovely collection.

Great idea. Make sure it is gold. Stamps don’t appreciate as well unless you know what you are doing.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

A rock?

 

[Miss_Felicity]

I don’t have any ideas about birthday specific traditions, but I did read somewhere about a mom who made an email address for her child, and sent pictures from birthdays, recitals, and holidays along with occasional notes and misc things there to give the password at 18. I think this is a brilliant idea.

 

[Pax2u]

In my family growing up my Mom would always say when she kissed us goodnight the eve of our birthday “This is the last time I’ll be able to kiss a __ year-old Mary”…and in the morning she’d kiss us again and say “This is the FIRST time I can kiss a ___ year old Mary.” I kept up the tradition with my kids and now my grandkids. The years I don’t happen to see someone on their actual birthday I make a phone call and have the same conversations!

My adult children and growing grandkids enjoy it…I can tell by the big grins it gets each year. My DH and I even say it to each other!

It doesn’t always have to cost money to make great memories.

 

[maryjk]

You could do your carnation idea but using balloons, one balloon for each year.

I really like the balloon idea. It is similar to flowers in cost and it is just an extra token rather than a large gift.

 

[Psalm98]

Thank you all for your very thoughtful responses. I will give them all careful consideration.

 

[Cariethra]

When I was 3, my mom started buying me birthday dolls. They are little porcelain dolls with the age attached. They get bigger with each year and stopped at 16. I still greatly treasure those dolls.