Tuesday Coffee Chat - 5/09/17

Today I'm joining Les at Ink Interrupted for her Tuesday Coffee Chat, where we are asked to respond to the question... "It's my birthday and Mother's Day soon... what should I do?"  She will be spending her weekend camping in the woods with a group of young Girl Guides, so she asks what we would wish for her as an alternative way to celebrate, or what we might wish for ourselves.

As I noted in my comment on her blog, and even though her family plans to celebrate with her a bit when she gets home on Sunday night, I think she should plan to have a late birthday celebration the following weekend.  My mother taught us that it's important that each holiday and life event be a reason for celebration, even though not a great deal of money needs to be spent to make it fun. Since Mother's Day is typically a celebration of family... either with your own mother, or as the mother of your children, perhaps it would be fun, since hers run so close together, to have her birthday celebration be a romantic overnight getaway with just her husband, with lots of candles, music, and good things to eat! 

I also believe that children should be taught to give gifts, even if they need a little help with funds when they are small.  I have seen children whose parents just include their name on the gift card for others, and they grow up to not have an understanding of how much mothers, and other relatives, appreciate a gift chosen just for them, even if it is something inexpensive, or a single flower, or even better yet, something hand made.  It is about the thought and effort expended, not the dollar value! 

I can remember my sisters and I saving up money from our small weekly allowances to go to the dime store and purchase gifts for my mother on Mother's Day.  It might have been a lace handkerchief, or some other pretty thing we thought she'd like, but she always was so very pleased with whatever we got. As we got a little older we began to make birthday cakes and Mother's Day cakes, and decorate them as fancy as we were able!  I know she cherished those efforts, just as I cherish the things my own two grown children do for me now, always with great thought and always spending too much!

However this weekend works out for you, Les, I hope you have a wonderful time camping, and that you are duly celebrated when you arrive home and that there will be cake with candles! :-)  We never grow too old for birthday cake, and we should never grow to old to celebrate another year of life given to us either!  I am sad for people who bemoan their birthdays, they are a gift!

For myself, my birthday was in February.  Our children don't live close enough to visit, but my husband always makes sure it's special, and I also follow the belief that it's okay, even awesome, to treat yourself!  Go and do something fun if you are home alone, get a treat, buy something special, make it a fun day!

Mother's Day is kind of bittersweet here though my dear husband tries his best to make it nice for me.  His mother and my mother have long since passed on, and my children won't be here to share it with me. There will be phone conversations most definitely and lovely treats and gifts in the mail, and my husband will take me out for a special dinner if I want to go. But I will always wish that I could spend it with my children. Maybe someday down the road life will take us closer to them. I know that my husband feels very much the same on Father's Day and his birthday, although his daughters, sadly, rarely do gifts or even cards. A text is nice, but come on girls, a little more effort for the dad who loves you so much, please!  My kids always remember him generously on his birthday and at Christmas, and I am proud of them for that.

In our house the furkids also get in on the gift giving. Christmastime and birthdays find my children getting a gift from ours, (since we keep the gift giving exchange limit very low),  and of course they will have a little help to give their "Daddy" a gift for Father's Day and for his birthday, it just makes it fun. :-)

And that's about all I have to say about that, I am very blessed and very loved and those are big reasons to celebrate, not just on my birthday or Mother's Day, but everyday!