The bliss of a summer birthday

My older brother Paul and I were winter babies. Paul was born on Christmas Day in 1956 and I followed him two years and 10 days later.

As a result, we often suffered the indignity of a combined birthday party. In my brother’s case there was the additional misery of the dual purpose gift. This was always handed over with the best of intentions, but in the end he still got just the one toy or cash-laden card, meant as both a Christmas and a birthday present. Some years I shared his pain, a victim of the same gifting scam.

Despite my incidental carping, my brother and I have one legitimate gripe. When your birthday falls in the dead of a Boston winter, it’s hard not to begrudge those sun-baked souls who get to enjoy the bliss of a summer birthday.

On these calendar-advantaged occasions, light, comfortable clothing is the style of the day, allowing party-goers an opportunity to show off the golden epidermal glow picked up on a recent sun holiday. And as for recording such events, different rules apply when you’re snapping party photos or shooting a commemorative video. In the summer the whole world is your stage – whether it’s a Mediterranean villa, a lakeside chalet in the Alps, or the expansive garden of an Irish country house. Good spirits prevail and smiles abound. At times sumptuous outdoor meals or even some daredevil paragliding might be on the menu.

Can we finally say goodbye to shaming women for letting their hair go grey?

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In the winter, you’re confined to a cramped set with bad lighting and uncooperative extras. Plus, the air is often stale and stifling – depending on the venue’s ventilation, which is basic at best when the temperature outside could be close to zero or rain might be pelting the windows – and your guests’ seasonally appropriate outerwear nearly requires its own off-site storage facility.

In the reels of film we have documenting various childhood events around our family’s suburban Boston home, certain birthday scenes involving my brother and me remain memorable. Even now, decades later, I can see us memorialised on film, gathered with our friends around the kitchen table, all of us fidgeting over a slice of cake and squinting into the solar flares needed to illuminate an indoor setting in those early days of personal video recording. I’m sure it’s safer to gaze directly at an eclipse than it was to look into those lights.

Of course, there was never the possibility of an outdoor party, for the simple reason that our backyard was probably buried under a foot of snow. I know this because our open-air winter frolics also feature prominently in our family’s home movies.

Having served as compere for many of my son’s birthday parties over the years, I can appreciate that these house-bound celebrations were definitely no picnic for my parents. Trying to keep certain neighbourhood rascals of my youth contained for even a fraction of an afternoon must have been hard work indeed. Once the dazzling effect of the movie lights wore off, I’m sure we fled the kitchen in a kind of destructive whirlwind, looking for entertainment elsewhere in the house. It’s also a good bet that I was leading the mob.

As evidence of my excitable behaviour, I offer another memorable home movie scene, this one staged during a week-long summer vacation in New Hampshire. Paul and my two younger sisters, Susan and Tracy, are lined up in orderly fashion beneath a tree in the front yard of our rental cottage. At the same time, on an upper limb, I can be seen bouncing like a deranged chimp. One explanation for my agitated state: we might have been celebrating Susan’s July birthday.

These days in Dublin, there’s no one who understands my birthday moan. My son was born in June and my wife’s birthday falls in July, making for two warm and sometimes sunlit occasions. (Of course, nothing of the sort is guaranteed in Ireland, but favourable weather is still more likely mid-year than in early January.)

Before you fire off an angry letter assailing me for my pettiness and ingratitude, let me say that I continue to look forward each year to my winter birthday.

For one thing, though I’m not a superstitious person, the roll call of exceptional people who happen to share my astrological sign is impressive. Fellow Capricorns Zora Neale Thurston, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, JD Salinger, and Isaac Asimov, among many others, please take a bow.

But far more important, even though another 12 months may have passed, it’s always encouraging to look in the mirror and see that you’re still sporting a considerable head of hair.