[RachaelBachael]

My birthday is in January, about 3 weeks after Christmas and I agree about getting shafted.

Of course growing up, my parents would make a big deal of my birthday, but as I've gotten older, I've gotten a lot of items for both Christmas and my birthday in one. Or I'll get a big ticket item, like a camera for Christmas and an accessory, like a camera case for my birthday.

Every year I make a list for my family with ideas of what to get me and it's a combined Christmas and Birthday list. One year my mom even went and brought out my birthday presents that she had already wrapped and hidden on Christmas morning when she realized I had a good 10 presents less than my siblings to open that year (we take turns opening, so I had been sitting there awkwardly, i was a teenager at the time).

Asking for an expensive "big" gift for my birthday was always met with "but you got this big item for Christmas just 2 weeks ago" where as my siblings were months away from Christmas so no one could remember what they had gotten and throw it back in their face.

Often times, a birthday activity was given as a Christmas gift. When I was in middle school my parents got me tickets to the Backstreet boys concert for my sister, a friend, my mom and I as a Christmas gift. The concert was my birthday party. If I had been born in May and the concert was in June, the concert would have been my birthday party and would have been given as a birthday present, not a Christmas present. I didn't receive any other birthday gifts that year (besides one from my friend) because the concert and a t-shirt from the show were my present.

It's similar with friends. Lots of friends would forget during grade school, as my birthday usually fell on the first day back to school from a long winter break. In college I would usually celebrate later as the first day of the new semester isn't the best time to go out partying when people are working out their classes, getting their books, etc. and gearing up for a new semester.

I don't have the worst birthday though. I do think it's worse to be born a few days before Christmas, or on Christmas day. Those people usually celebrate their half birthdays or they get totally screwed.