The Christmas Baby’s Dilemma

Read: How one Atlantic editor is spending her holidays this year

Even though Marquardt now appreciates her birthday, she still recognizes that the day is often overshadowed by festivities, and the namesake of Christmas himself. A few years ago, she wrote a song called “Born on Christmas Day,” which has the hilariously memorable chorus of “Stop stealing my thunder, Jesus!” Marquardt explained to me that “the song is really very tongue in cheek, because it makes it seems like I don’t like my birthday, but I actually really do.”

Like Marquardt, I started to embrace my birthday more as I grew older. But I spent years disliking my birthday, especially after after my parents separated, when I was 12. After that, the holidays just served as a stressful reminder that our family had split. But on my 17th birthday, a confluence of circumstances meant I finally got to spend the day on my terms.

That year, all I wanted was to sleep in, eat junk food, and watch the Doctor Who Christmas special. But my mom had planned for us to go to Los Angeles to see relatives, so none of those were options. Then I came down with a terrible cold on Christmas Eve. I spent the day in a cold sweat, swaddled under the covers. On Christmas Day, my fever still hadn’t broken, so I stayed in the hotel while my mom and grandma went to join the rest of our family. I ordered some soup and faded in and out of sleep. In the evening, I turned the TV on and watched Matt Smith in his final Doctor Who appearance .

I’d never been alone on my birthday before. At first, I felt giddy, even though I was sick. This was exactly what I wanted, I thought. But looking around the room, I felt the absence of Christmas: no smell of evergreen, no gaudy yet cheery decorations, no sound of the table being set. I missed my family. By getting what I wanted for my birthday, I was missing out on Christmas. That day I decided I didn’t want to make that trade-off again.

For my 18th birthday, I invited all my friends over to make ornaments and decorate the Christmas tree one day in mid-December. As we blasted Christmas carols and hot-glued popsicle sticks together, suddenly the fact that I could have a joint Christmas and birthday party made me feel lucky and unique. Some of my friends told me that it was like having double Christmas, and my Jewish friends were excited to get a taste of the holiday.

That year, on the 25th, my parents also started a tradition of having Christmas dinner as a family. We invite any friends or relatives who are in the Bay Area, and my obachan makes a big plate of spam musubi to snack on while we cook dinner together. My parents are still separated, but it’s comforting to be able to come together for a holiday and celebrate.

For many people, birthdays are the ultimate celebration of the individual. What do you want to do today? Whom do you want to see? What do you want to eat? I’ve craved that experience my whole life. But there is something humbling about being born on Christmas, about approaching the day as one of family and community, rather than one focused on the self.