“An unbirthday (originally written un-birthday) is an event that is typically celebrated on any or all of the 364 or 365 days in which it is not the person’s birthday.
It is a neologism coined by Lewis Carroll in his Through the Looking Glass, giving rise to “The Unbirthday Song” in the 1951 Disney animated feature film Alice in Wonderland.” [Wikipedia]
Today I celebrated my unbirthday, not my real birthday, but a bonus one that one of the children in my class presented me with. She made me a cake. It smelled so good! She put candles on it and asked me to blow them out, but then she suddenly remembered that when you have a birthday, someone is supposed to sing to you! She looked around for someone who could sing with her and spotted a little girl who did not turn two years old all that long ago. My cake making friend tried to make her two-year-old friend sing, but the two-year-old just gave her a sort of blank look, before she took off to play somewhere else…
The birthday planner was by now very frustrated. She told me that she couldn’t remember how the Happy Birthday song went! I suggested that I sing it with her but she quickly told me that I couldn’t sing it because it was my birthday!
I tried to defuse the situation by suggesting that we cut the cake and eat some. As I was attempting to pass a slice of cake to her, she suddenly exclaimed; “No, it’s hot!”
She took the plate with my pretend cake on it and stomped away with it towards the play kitchen. When she was half way there, she stopped, turned around and came back to me. Looking very serious, she said; “And that’s the end of your birthday!”
Working at a preschool/day care center, there are many unbirthdays in a week and hundreds in a year!! Summertime is an especially popular time for unbirthdays, when it is easy to whip up an unbirthday cake in the sandbox.
With the arrival of warmer weather I am looking forward to many more unbirthdays!
Happy Unbirthday to you all!
– Miss Maria
Miss Amy's Blog 