ORIGINS: It is speculated that the tradition of celebrating birthdays began with an all-male Pagan cult, long before the rise of Christianity. Pagan cultures believed they were susceptible to evil spirits, especially during life changes. Since a birthday signifies change, it was important for the birthday person to be surrounded by friends and family. Loved ones shielded the person in happiness and laughter, which in turn, warded off evil spirits. Instead of gifts, most guests brought positive thoughts and happy wishes for the upcoming year. However, if well-wishers did bring gifts, it was considered an especially good influence for the birthday person.
Common people and especially children never celebrated their birth when the idea came about. This trend has been explained by a theory that nobility were the only people wealthy enough to throw such celebrations, and quite possibly were the only ones deemed important enough to have been written about or remembered. Some historians believe these early birthday bashes resulted in the custom of wearing birthday “crowns” as time went on.
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Birthdays of powerful and wealthy individuals have been celebrated for millennia. The Bible's book of Genesis (ch. 40:20) indicates that Egyptian pharaohs organized festive events around their birthdays and, according to Dalby and Grainger in The Classical Cookbook (p. 32), so did Romans in far-flung parts of the Empire. After the Middle Ages, birthdays began to be celebrated by others of wealth and position. Eventually, a growing middle class in the United States in the post–Civil War period began to emulate the customs and manners of their more affluent fellow citizens. [3]
CAKE: The great cake, a large, lavish creation, was the centerpiece for any Early American party at which it appeared. Making it was difficult, time-consuming, and costly. As Louise Conway Belden points out in "The Festive Tradition: Table Decoration and Desserts in America, 1650–1900" (pp. 184–190), its appearance made the event special and festive.
The birthday cake tradition in the United States is little more than a century old, but the relationship of cakes and celebration has a much longer history. It was traditional in Roman times, especially for those reaching fifty years of age, to be feted with special cakes, according to Toussaint-Samat in History of Food (p. 32).
During the Middle Ages in Northern Europe there was little distinction made between bread and cake. Both were leavened with yeast and sweetness was not an important characteristic. Alan Davidson has written in The Oxford Companion to Food (p. 123) that it was not until the late fourteenth century in Europe that professional cooks were able to create immense yeast-leavened cakes filled with dried fruits for special occasions.
In 1863 two pharmacists in Indiana finally succeeded in developing the right blend of baking soda and cream of tartar to produce baking powder. Much earlier in the nineteenth century, the cast iron stove had come into use, and as home bakers learned to employ it in concert with chemical leavens, the modern-day layer cake became possible.
At that time, preparing cake ingredients still involved a lot of tedious work, but later in the century, many labor-saving devices for cooks—egg beaters, standardized baking pans, measuring cups and spoons, and ice boxes—appeared. What once was accessible only to a person wealthy enough to hire and outfit a professional cook had become possible for home cooks everywhere to produce successfully.
Cake Candles: Light from the sun or from fire had very early religious and mystical significance, and rituals using light in the form of candles became part of religious ceremonies surrounding weddings, funerals, and other important human events, according to O'Dea's Social History of Lighting (pp. 34, 139–143). Candles also are associated with the measurement of time, and were used in the late ninth century by England's King Alfred to measure the hours of the day. In the Judeo-Christian tradition they have been used to symbolize the passage of time (at Advent or Hanukkah). The candles, rather than the cake itself, connote a long span of time. Using very small tapers to light a special cake, with the number of tapers equal to a birthday child's age, seems to have begun in Germany in the late eighteenth century or earlier, judging by a letter written in 1799 by the German poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in which he referred to the tradition of Kinder-fest (Goethe, pp. 114–115).
The honoree is encouraged to make a secret wish and attempt to blow out all the candles with one breath to ensure that the wish will be realized. Despite various theories that have been advanced, the true origins of this custom are unknown. [3]
CARDS: Sending birthday cards is a custom that began in England about 100 years ago. Today, millions of cards are sent around the world each year to wish family and friends a happy birthday.
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The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of good will to celebrate the New Year, and to the early Egyptians, who conveyed their greetings on papyrus scrolls.
By the early 15th century, handmade paper greeting cards were being exchanged in Europe. The Germans are known to have printed New Year's greetings from woodcuts as early as 1400, and handmade paper Valentines were being exchanged in various parts of Europe in the early to mid-15th century, with the oldest Valentine in existence being in the British Museum.
By the 1850s, the greeting card had been transformed from a relatively expensive, handmade and hand-delivered gift to a popular and affordable means of personal communication, due largely to advances in printing, mechanization, and a reduction in postal rates with the introduction of the postage stamp. [5]
SONG: Singing “Happy Birthday to You” has also been a long-standing tradition on birthdays as well. It was written by two American sisters in 1893, and has been translated into several languages around the world. [1] [2]
The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" comes from the song "Good Morning to All", which was written and composed by American siblings Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill in 1893. In 1893, they published the tune in their songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten. However, many[who?] believe that the Hill sisters most likely copied the tune and lyrical idea from other popular and substantially similar nineteenth-century songs that predated theirs, including Horace Waters' "Happy Greetings to All", "Good Night to You All" also from 1858, "A Happy New Year to All" from 1875, and "A Happy Greeting to All", published 1885. The Hill Sisters' students enjoyed their teachers' version of "Good Morning To All" so much that they began spontaneously singing it at birthday parties, changing the lyrics to "Happy Birthday".
The combination of melody and lyrics in "Happy Birthday to You" first appeared in print in 1912, and probably existed even earlier. None of these early appearances included credits or copyright notices. The Summy Company registered for copyright in 1935, crediting authors Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman.[citation needed] In 1990, Warner Chappell purchased the company owning the copyright for $15 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at $5 million. Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claims that the United States copyright will not expire until 2030, and that unauthorized public performances of the song are technically illegal unless royalties are paid to it. In the EU and other countries in which copyright lasts for the life of the author(s) plus 70 years, the copyright will expire after December 31, 2016, as Patty Hill died in 1946 while in the United States, the song is currently set to pass in to the public domain in 2030. [4]
(Note: This is why American restaurant staff often sing a different, made-up birthday song instead of this
song, at birthday dinners out).
SPANKINGS: Some children receive birthday “spankings”, which are were originally based on superstition, but are now more of a birthday prank or a joke. Hundreds of years ago, spankings were given for each year of the birthday child’s life. Beyond that number, a child received another spanking to grow on, one to live on, one to eat on, one to be happy on, and yet another spanking to get married on. At one time, it was considered back luck if the birthday celebrant was not spanked because it was believed to “soften up the body for the tomb.” Historians are unsure if the practice of swatting the birthday girl or boy was treated as a joke, as people view it today. [1] [2]
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