Fitness/Aloha Friday

Fitness first:
Finally, some GOOD news! Being home, and chasing the kids, and cutting out the after-dinner-snacking has paid off! I'm down a pound and a half over two weeks ago. I'LL TAKE IT. I've got three months, and three pounds, to go before the New Years. I can do this.

Except...we're launching into holiday season here. It starts with BBJ's birthday next week and doesn't end until Baby Jesus' birthday in December. *sigh* That's a lot of birthday cake, y'all. A lot of birthday cake. And pumpkin pie. And fruitcake. Oh, and Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is next weekend...and there are mooncakes to be had. More on those later.

I love the holidays, don't you?



And now we get to my favorite part of the week - the part where YOU do my blogging for me!



It's simple - I post a question, you comment with an answer, and we are all edified together. (If you'd like more questions to answer, or would like to play along, head on over to Island Life and link up!)

So my question is...
Growing up, what was your favorite birthday tradition?

My favorite tradition, by far, was the s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g of our birthdays. It began the Monday before our birthday, on our Family Home Evening night. The birthday kid got to choose a restaurant in town and the family would all go out to dinner. Of course, then someone would always let the waiter know we were celebrating a birthday, and there would be off-key singing and ice cream with fudge sauce and a candle. (Why does every restaurant in the Continental US serve chocolate and ice cream for birthdays?) This was followed by the actual birthday, where the birthday kid could choose what Dad made for dinner. Dinner was followed by cake, and presents.

Lots of presents. Sometimes, packages of socks would be divided out into 14 individual presents.

We adored presents as kids. I remember, at Christmas time, opening up cans of soup from the pantry, only to have them put back in the pantry. We didn't care! It was something with our name on it.

(Incidentally, it made us much more likely to want to eat that particular can of soup, no matter how much we had despised it the week before!)

Finally, there was the Saturday after the birthday, where we would have our "Friend" party. We were allowed to invite friends over, and Mom would organize a birthday party for us. One year, it was 25 16-year olds on a soup truck serving hot dogs to homeless men. (That was Myrnie's idea...not Mom's.) Mom's parties usually involved more cake, goodie bags and movie watching. Oh, and more candy. We love us some treats!

(Did you notice a theme up there? The going out to dinner and the Dad cooking dinner? That was Mom's idea. Oh, and the presents? Those were her idea, too - woman loves to shop. :-) That woman? She's a smart one.)

This year, for BBJ's birthday, I made up a little banner to hang in the window. I'm hoping it's something we can keep using...a visual reminder that it's somebody's special day. She's only turning three, so the eating out, and the friends...it's all being kept to a minimum.

So, spill. What were your favorite birthday traditions growing up?