Merited Holidays

So, this year I am the recipient of a new holiday called Mother's Day. Since this means I get an extra present ;) I started thinking about other holidays for which I've received gifts, and realized that I particularly savor the ones that honor achievements.

For instance, Christmas is pleasant as a general seasonal coziness and spirit, but as far as gifts go, Jesus was the one who got born (like that--"got born?"). I didn't really do anything. So why am I getting all these gifts?!

Birthdays: this time it was me who got born. But I don't remember it. And my mom did most of the work.

Wedding: Big deal. Having not even embarked on the marriage yet, talk to me in 25 years. If we're still together, maybe I'll think of this in terms of achievement and merit.

Baby shower: Felt proud, but let's face it. The gifts were for the baby, not me, despite all my delusions.

Graduations: now looking back on it, I've always felt proud of receiving graduation gifts (yeah, a high school, undergrad, and grad under my belt), knowing I really earned a bit of honor and celebration.

This first Mother's Day, I truly feel a sense of accomplishment, that I am worthy and deserving of a gift or laurel. It is not merely a feeling of participation in unabashed consumerism. I have earned it.

Speaking of unabashed consumerism, of which parties and celebrations have often become very thinly-veiled mediums, I've been asked about Himal's 1st birthday party. Ok...what?! Suddenly I'm being asked about themes! Didn't we just do "themes" last year for the baby shower and the nursery (oh, who am I kidding...there's no nursery...there's his room with some Winnie the Pooh stuff on the walls)? Unbeknownst to me (existing in foolish if blissful oblivion!), I've been informed by more seasoned parent-friends that kids' birthday parties are the current barometer of coolness. Forget the right shoes...in middle and upper middle class USA, suddenly it is the production of a birthday party that measures one's place in the world.

The thought of participating in such an atrocity raised 2 questions in my mind:

1) Why would I do this? and
2) Again, why would I do this?

Of course we'll honor Himal's 1st birthday. Of course we will!!! I already have the cake in my mind's eye--heart-shaped of course. Because as you may or may not know, Himal's got a pretty serious heart condition. It's going to be a celebration of a triumph...a triumph of making it through the first year...and it will be more meaningful than any store-bought theme.