I Suck At Celebrating My Friend's Birthday

as my friend (hot amy) would tell you a little gleam in her eyes... yesterday was my friend's (garv) birthday. happy birthday garv! i hope you enjoyed your day. too bad i suck at celebrating my friend's birthday.

i suppose that is not totally true. a bunch of us (marc, kelley, cass, ellen, garv, leean, karen and myself) did actually celebrate garv's birthday yesterday... as well as leeann's... and ellen's... and mine too. yes, it was quite a day for birthday celebrations.

my circle of friends have had a long tradition of celebrating birthdays. typically, the celebration cycle starts from august to january... and then there is a lull until august again... to which the cycle repeats. seemingly, each month during that time one of our friends is celebrating a birthday. currently, november is the only month without a birthday among my circle of friends... the month originally had a birthday celebrant, but people grow apart... it happens.

anyway, this year was the first time that we had ever combined four birthdays into one celebratory day. the holidays are usually a tough time to get together... so it only made sense to combine the four. so, that is what we did...

we decided to stick with tradition and celebrate at vinny t's in dedham. it just so happens that the day we decided to celebrate the four birthdays... was actually on garv's birthday. (for anyone curious... vinny t's has round tables, which is one of the reasons why the restaurant was originally chosen way back when... that and the heaping piles of food...)

needless to say, the food was good. i think everyone enjoyed their birthday presents as well. i know i did... proof yet again that i am lucky to have such great friends.

yesterday was also the first time we did a yankee swap of sorts. traditionally, after the birthday celebration in december for ellen and myself, all of us would exchange secret santa presents. this year, we actually did away with the secret santa... instead opting to donate our money to a worthy cause... which in our current economy is probably much needed.

in keeping with the holiday fun, however, we decided to have a yankee swap of regifted presents.

(pictured below is the yankee swap present i received.)


i ended up with what was termed... the kkk santa... or the grand wizard santa. after all, the "tree" in his hand does almost look like a cross. if only i could light the "tree" on fire and put the santa on our front lawn... just kidding.

anyway, it was a fun time last night. i hope garv enjoyed his day. after all, his birthday celebration could not have been worse than last year's... that is for sure. (last year's celebration for garv turned out to be quite the fiasco involving possible fisticuffs over a disagreement in beliefs... yes, very odd...) so.. happy birthday garv! you deserve a good day.