This week I got an invitation for a birthday party in Germany. Being invited to celebrate a birthday with friends is always an honor and was really happy to get the invitation card, even if most likely I'm not going to attend, but this is besides the point right now.
What surprised me was what was written on the card. Along with the information about the venue, how to get there from the airport, along with phone numbers, there was a special request as well. The inviter said instead of a birthday gift, they prefer a donation to their favorite charity and then listed the bank details you need in case of fund transfers.
Photo by Ahmet Yüksek ✪ on Unsplash
Before you jump to conclusions, I have nothing against donating and helping those in need, I'm doing it constantly one way or another, but this request is odd in so many ways.
A birthday is a special occasion in everyone's life and should be celebrated in a memorable way, with family, friends and loved ones each year. This includes gifts that are specially bought of handmade for this occasion, that the birthday person can enjoy at the event or later, depending on the gift.
We have a saying in Hungarian, "ajándék lónak ne nézd a fogát", which translates in English as follows: "don't look a gift horse in the mouth".
This classic idiom means that when you receive a gift, you should accept it gratefully and not complain, criticize, or try to find flaws in it. (In the old days, a horse's age and health could be determined by examining its teeth, so inspecting a gift horse's mouth was considered rude and ungrateful.)
Photo by Fiona Murray-deGraaff on Unsplash
I think English speakers say "beggars can't be choosers". Regardless of how you say it, it's not really about the cost or value of the gift. Intention should count more, sometimes a home baked cake brings more joy than a pricy gift and there are gifts that don't have a price, just value.
With this donation method the whole joy of gifting and with it, surprising the birthday person goes out of the window, unless you place a lot of zeros on that donation, to knock them off their feet.
Photo by Martin Masson on Unsplash
For me, it kind of feels like a mandatory thing and ruins the whole thing. Everyone's donation can be and will be tracked as you get the bank statement and depending on the case, you can be judged according to the size of the donation. This is not what we do here, even if you want to collect donations for a good cause, you don't connect your birthday to it and let people gift you (or not) what they want.
The world is changing though. Events are the same as always, but getting celebrated in bigger and bigger ways. Parents are booking a restaurant for their kids graduation from kindergarten, which is pure madness if you ask me. Take your kid to the park, spend a day with them, buy them a cake or whatever food they like, but inviting everyone you know to a fancy place, just because the kid grew old enough to leave kindergarten is pure madness. They do this when the kid graduates from elementary school and so on till they are reaching adulthood. It makes you wonder what counts more, celebrating the event, having fun for a day and making nice memories with people you care about, or collecting the envelopes, which is mandatory these days.
Photo by Rubén Madila on Unsplash
Except this case, I'm lucky to have family and friends that still know the value of these events and you don't hear them saying: "I don't care if you don't attend, but you have to send me the envelope", but others are not that lucky and imagine the taste in their mouth after such a day and the feeling they can never forget, not because it was so good, but because it's shocking and makes you uncomfortable.
I don't know about you, but I personally don't want to know what society is going to be in 10, 20 years in this regard. I'm ok with the old fashion way and some thing should not change.
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