Birthday Coats!

If you've heard me talk about birthdays of my youth you know that my sister and I celebrated our birthdays together, every year.  Her birthday is July 13 and mine July 31.  So... with birthdays being weeks apart my Mom would split the difference and have one party.  One cake. Two kids. It made good fiscal sense. Given it was summer our parties consisted of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and maybe a neighbor or two. I don't recall ever having a school friend at a party. That's likely because we were in center of summer break and things like Evites, e-mail and texting didn't exist.  (Avoiding a summer birthday for our child was something S & I planned for so (she) could have birthday parties with friends... Yeah. Planner in all things. Judge if you must. ;) HA!) 

One of the traditions of our birthday parties was our gifts. I don't remember  a year where our birthday gifts weren't winter coats. Big, heavy winter coats. In July. That we modeled. Did I mention the IN JULY part? I distinctly remember that my coats were always pink. Hot pink. Light pink. Hot & Light pink combined. (No joke, one year my whole wardrobe was pink. One color. That's ALL I WORE!!!) Because of this I gained a nickname of 'Cupcake' by some of the older kids on the school bus. I still don't know if it was a term of endearment or they were teasing me... Either way... I was Cupcake all through elementary school. 

Now 30+ years later... approaching the big four oh and I look back and know the necessity of those gifts. Back then, we just thought that's what everyone got. Say what? You didn't get a winter coat for your birthday? I'm sorry! My sister and I would model them, twirls and all, with those hoods on and tied, in the dead of summer. Oh, I'm sure there were groans, mostly because of how hot it was, but we'd do it. Because, well... It was a new winter coat!!! Woohoo!!!  For years I've wondered... how in the world did they find a winter coat in July?  I couldn't tell you who gave us the coats... whether it was my grandparents, my mom, my aunt and uncle... I don't know. I just know we got them!  

Yesterday I was shopping at Costco and I came across these cute ... wait for it... WINTER COATS!!! What did I do? Yes ma'am, I bought one!! I didn't think about it until I got home and then laughed at myself. HAHAHA - I bought myself a winter coat. In July. About the same weekend we had our birthday party every year.  I felt like my Mom was getting a good chuckle out of this up in heaven. 

Yes Mom... A winter coat... but this time in blue.  See that? I'm branching out! ;)  (Oh. And they didn't have pink. Or green.) 

xo