Multicultural Kid Blogs officially turns one year old today! To celebrate, we are holding a virtual party with some of our favorite pals, and YOU are invited! To link up your birthday-related posts and to enter our giveaway, see the end of this post. Be sure to follow all of our celebrations this week.
In the meantime, we have a wonderfully funny post from Amanda at Expat Life With a Double Buggy, all about the misunderstandings and awkwardness of celebrating birthdays in a new country.
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Birthdays are best with no circles in sight(c) Amanda van Mulligen |
Growing up in England my birthday celebrations evolved from children’s parties at home with traditional party games like pass the parcel, musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey and musical statues. As I got older I remember birthday parties turning into birthday treats. I went with a few friends to a musical in a London theatre (James and the Giant Peach is one such memory) or the cinema. As my teenage years went by such trips turned into two separate celebrations – a family dinner and drinks with friends. Combining the two worlds during a birthday was never on the cards. Until I came to the Netherlands.
My initiation into the Dutch birthday circle happened soon after moving to the Netherlands in 2000. I barely spoke Dutch. I knew none of the guests. I had no prior warning of a Dutch birthday celebration. I was unprepared. Clueless. I was a Dutch birthday circle virgin. I was naive. Easy pickings. Like a lamb to the slaughter.
Guests arrived and everyone started kissing and congratulating me. It wasn’t my birthday. I was startled. Why were all these strangers kissing me? Did they think they here to celebrate my birthday? My partner whispered,
“It’s normal. It’s because you’re related to the birthday host so you get a congratulations too.”
Although not strictly blood related I was apparently in the firing line by default because of my partner’s direct bloodline. Unavoidably then I was to be kissed on the cheek three times by every single guest that came through the door.
In a state of utter confusion I was ushered to a chair. It was a chair in a circle in the living room. The living room normally looked like a regular living room. A sofa or two, a table, a TV and a fireplace. In honour of the birthday celebration the living room had been transformed into what I know now to be lovingly known by expats as the circle of death. This is a special birthday arrangement whereby all chairs in the house (as well as chairs borrowed from the neighbours, friends and family) are placed in a tight circle. The phrase ‘packed like sardines’ actually originated after a wordsmith’s attendance at a Dutch birthday circle. The idea is that once you are seated you do not move. Not one inch for the entire afternoon/evening/night.
That means late arrivals clambered over the circle to get to me to give me the obligatory congratulatory kisses that I neither understood nor wanted. And there was no escape from the birthday circle. Extraction from the circle was impossible. I could picture how it felt to be a small child thrown in a swimming pool without armbands. Terrifying. Suffocating. Bewildering.
And then everyone started talking to each other. Across the circle. Without moving from their seat, ignoring their unknown neighbour to talk to the familiar person on the other side of the large circle. Everyone talking through each other, loudly. In a language I had little comprehension of. And then, just as I thought I couldn’t possibly have any more fun than I was already having, people started shouting at me from the other side of the circle. In Dutch. Loudly. I had never before prayed so hard for a Star Trek type transporter to suddenly appear and take me back to my own world. A world where birthdays are not celebrated in circles at home.
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Protecting my sons from the dreaded circle with themedbirthday parties and little people only as guests(c) Amanda van Mulligen |
Needless to say these days I do everything I can to avoid the birthday circle ever making an appearance in our house. I don’t want to subject my children to the same ordeal I went through, causing trauma that may fade but never completely disappear. But it’s hard. There is something in the Dutch genes that compels them to move chairs into circles when they come together in a group. It is a force so powerful it can only be overcome by hiding chairs entirely. It’s extreme but it’s the only thing I can do to help my sons grow up in a world free of Dutch birthday circles.
Amanda van Mulligen is a Brit who is slowly learning how to be Dutch. She has lived in the Netherlands since 2000 and finds that raising three little Dutch boys with her Dutch husband results in daily cultural conundrums and linguistic lapses – but she wouldn’t change a thing. You can find out more about her adventures parenting abroad at Expat Life With a Double Buggy.
Multicultural Kid Blogs is officially one year old as of today. To celebrate we are hosting a virtual birthday party and YOU are invited!
The Party
Be sure to visit the participating blogs (see list at the end of this post) to see what they are bringing to the party, plus link up your posts below!
The Giveaway
Like any good host, we don’t want you to go home empty handed, so we are offering some great prizes to three lucky winners. See the end of the post for details on the prizes.
You can enter by:
1) Linking up a birthday-related post or
2) Commenting to tell us your wish for the coming year!
Party Hosts
Creative World of Varya
Dad’s the Way I Like It
MommyMaestra
SpanglishBaby
For the Love of Spanish
Spanish Playground
the piri-piri lexicon
Expat Life with a Double Buggy
Kids Yoga Stories
MarocMama
All Done Monkey
Party Favors
Prize #1
Digital download of Más Canciones en Español from Music with Sara
Prize #2
Set of 2 books from National Geographic Kids – US Shipping Only
Treasury of Egyptian Mythology
Prize #3
Lively Spanish immersion program DVD recommended for children ages 2-7 from Whistlefritz
Now it’s your turn! For a chance to win one of these prizes just link up your birthday posts or comment to tell us your wish for the coming year!
Leanna
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Happy happy happy happy birthday!
Wish love from me to you
May your wishes all come true!
Happy happy happy happy birthday!
To you!
(Originally sung on Hi5 Celebrations)
Happy Birthday MKB!!! – Amanda, I love your post about Dutch birthday celebrations! I’ve been in “the circle” once and found it pretty amusing (but I was allowed to stand up and move around during “circle time” ;-)).
Dus: Van harte gefeliciteerd met je verjaardag MKB!!!
Happy 1st Birthday MKB! I’m so happy to be a part of this community!
Happy Birthday! Our wish is for enjoying every day to the max!
Happy Birthday! I love, love, love this blog and only wish I had time to be a more active supporter. You do great things. Here’s to another gazillion birthdays!
Happy Birthday MKB!! So happy to be a part of this group and I’m loving this blog!! Priceless!
Happy 1st Birthday! My wish for the coming year is to move to our new home, get settled into our new community and begin focusing more on becoming healthier and living a more sustainable life style.
Our wish for this coming year is health and happiness.
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This is so neat. Happy Birthday. Our biggest wish it to have continued health. Also remember to take time to smell the roses. Life goes to quick. It is the simple things that matter the most.
Happy Happy Birthday! Thank you for links to all these wonderful blogs. My wish is to continue to learn ways to help my daughter be bilingual while unfortunately her parents are not.
Yep! 🙂 I asked my expat kids once how they sing “Happy Birthday” in Dutch and my son sang, “Happy birsday to you. Happy birsday to you. Happy birsday dear ——-. Happy birsday to you.”
Happy birthday! Wishing you much peace and happiness this year!
This year I wish to spend more time with the ones I love!
How fun! I wish I had the time to blog! Good luck in the coming year!
Happy Birthday! Your party sounds really fun! I want to throw a party soon too and I would love to be this enjoyable too! Great Post!