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One present or two? How many presents do you give a Christmas baby?

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One gift, or two? Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels
One gift, or two? Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

"Your birthday is on Christmas Day?! Do you get one present, or two?" I've been asked this question my entire life, and until recently I didn't have an answer.

My go-to response was always a shrug. I don't particularly care - I'm not a 'birthday person' - and I feel it's up to the gift-giver to decide these things. I've never had a Christmas or birthday wish list, but I've always been thankful for any gifts I receive on the day.

There is one birthday tradition I won't compromise on. It was started by my parents when I was a tiny toddler: Christmas morning breakfast for the last several decades has always been chocolate cake. 

Homemade, with chocolate icing and glacé cherries. 

My husband spent our first Christmas together learning to bake, and has gotten better at it every year.

The kids help now, and wake me up with a slice (at dawn, yes) and a song, and it's the best ten minutes of me-focus for the year. 

Once the cake is done it's time to move on to the kids' gifts and other Christmas traditions, and my birthday celebration is all over pretty quickly. I don't begrudge this at all though, and always enjoy the day.  

Overlooked? 

In conversation with other adults who share this birth date, it comes up that quite often their birthday was sometimes completely forgotten, even by family and close friends.

So that adds an extra element to those born on the 25th: having to remind other people that the day is extra special.

But then just last year I was browsing through a local toy shop, buying gifts for my kids, and came across a couple having an argument.

The wife was insisting that their one-year-old Christmas-birthday daughter get two presents on the day, and the husband was arguing that one gift was enough.

As a Christmas baby myself, I felt I could offer my adult perspective, and interjected with an on-the-spot decision: "Two gifts!" 

The wife was delighted, the husband slightly less so, but I'm sure they left the toy shop with two bags that day. 

What do you do?

The recipient doesn't have much control over whether they get one gift or two, since it's really up to the gift-giver.

So we conducted a quick survey to find out if one gift or two was the norm, and found that 40% of respondents buy one gift, and 60% buy two: 

One gift, or two?

Some mitigated their lone offering by explaining that they would make it a more expensive or larger gift. This could work for an adult, but to a child more is more, and money doesn't matter.

Are you a one-gift Grinch, or do you do the decent thing and give two?

Do you celebrate your birthday on the biggest holiday of the year? How do you feel about it? 

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