Birthdays and Books

When you’re a kid, birthdays are special. Your parents organize a party for you, you get presents from relatives and friends, you turn a whole year older (wow!), and you might even get to wear a little birthday hat around school that proudly proclaims “it’s my birthday!” to everyone you happen to pass in the hallways. To kid-me, the word “birthday” meant parties at iPower and the YMCA: screaming kids and gifts wrapped in tissue paper and goodie bags, store-bought cakes and candle wax and frosting-stained teeth. 

I loved my birthday. I was a lucky kid -- my mom made sure to hold a birthday party for me every year at the YMCA or The Little Gym, sometimes at the planetarium or Urbana Aquatic Center. I got to spend a day playing with my friends, eating cake, and receiving gifts. 

Opening presents was my favorite part. I liked to look at the huge pile of wrapped gifts that awaited me every time. It wasn’t as much the contents of the gifts that excited me -- most of the gifts I received were generic plastic kid toys that usually got thrown out pretty soon anyway. What I loved was ripping the wrapping paper and the slow anticipation as the thing underneath the layers of wrapping was finally revealed. I loved the feeling that the present was for me and for me only, not any of my siblings. I loved the anticipation, not the gift.

I remember a specific party in middle school when I, for the first time, put together a wish list for the presents I wanted to receive (basically just a list of new books I wanted to read). Opening those presents was less suspenseful; once I saw the telltale rectangular shape, I knew immediately it was a book, and probably one of the ones on my list. 

But unlike presents I’d received in the past, I still have every single one of those books I received that day. They’re on my shelf. I’ve read them all already, but even though they technically don’t have any other uses I’m definitely not going to throw any of them away. The satisfaction I gained from reading each one of those books goes deeper than the satisfaction of tearing at big pieces of colorful paper taped around a box. Those books were gifts I could value. 

The mere act of opening a present doesn’t give me the same satisfaction it once did. Nowadays, all I wish for of a present is that it’s useful, because then I know I will at least keep it for its usefulness. That, for one, has changed since the past. What makes me treasure a gift is its use and the sentimental value I can hold to it. After all, anticipation in the moment is fleeting, but a good gift lasts forever. Well, almost.