I awake to the jarring melody of my alarm. It is 5:30 am, but I am not going to go back to sleep today. My heart drums with excitement as I sneak out to the living room, where I find my father preparing decorations and my mother heating up an enormous pot of miyeok-guk. Twenty minutes later, we are ready. Cake in my hands, we creep into the bedroom across the hall where my brother sleeps. Everything is perfect.
For four mornings every year, my family wakes up at the crack of dawn to celebrate each of our birthdays. I don’t know when or why we began this tradition, but ever since, birthday mornings are the biggest celebration of the day. We have developed an unspoken routine and roles which we take on with earnesty. The preparation consists of:
Setting up the living room
We hang up a string of balloon letters which spell out “happy birthday” and tape them to the top of the fireplace
Setting the kitchen
Cooked the day before, we set bowls of traditional Korean birthday soup (miyeok-guk) out on our table
Waking them up
With one person bearing the cake, our procession wakes up the family member and places a shiny red birthday hat on their head
As a self-proclaimed perfectionist and planner, I often find myself as the one decorating the living room. I scour the basement storage room every year for anything that looks festive, wanting to transform the space as much as possible. When I am satisfied with my work, I often step back and watch it for a while before going to help out in the kitchen. My family scrambles around the house for final preparations, sporting messy hair and pajamas. But when we are ready, any traces of morning sulk disappear.
On my birthday, I look forward to the morning more than any other aspect of the day. Sometimes I spend the rest of it just as any other. I often awake before the rest of my family comes in to “wake me up,” and lay in bed pretending to be asleep. Despite knowing what is to come, my heart pounds with excitement as I hear my dads heavy footfalls outside my door. I think that part of the excitement is because these are rare moments where the whole family is able to actually do something together. We don’t have “family meals” or allotted game nights, partly because of our busy schedules, so just eating that birthday breakfast together is a big occasion.
With my brother already off in college and me preparing for my final semester at home, I can only hope that we will continue to uphold this tradition. Or maybe we can create new ones that will last well into the future. Either way, I will always cherish these intimate celebrations and the memories I hold from them.
This is a great essay! The into pulled me in immediately, and I like how you follow it up by explaining the situation. The narration, tone, and flow are really good in this essay. You bring up some good reflection about the effect and meaning of this tradition at the end of the essay, and I think it would be interesting to see that expanded on. The essay feels very personal, but the way you describe the tradition still makes it really relatable.
ReplyDeleteGreat Essay! I loved your description of prepping for you family members' birthdays. It's so wholesome and sweet, and I hope you continue it as well. I think one thing you could maybe add is more connection to the universal. perhaps say something about how important it is for people to meet as a family, or how important it is to have certain traditions. Also, I think it would be interesting to know how the tasks are reallocated when it is yout birthday, and someone else must decorate the living room. Overall, I really liked your essay.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very wholesome essay and the narration is very strong. I liked the way you wrote your tasks out in a list, makes it seem more in the moment. I think reflection could be expanded upon. The part where you explain why these birthday mornings are special because of whole family participation is very interesting. Maybe reflecting more on family could be good.
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