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Hello. My name is Cari and I am a teacher with the online English school, Englishdom.com.
Today, I’m going to talk to you about birthdays. I think birthdays are important because it’s
a special celebration to say, “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you’re alive.
I’m glad you’re with us.” In my family, birthdays are a multi-cultural experience.
We all meet at my mom’s house for cake and ice cream on the actual birthday or on the
Sunday closest to the birthday. Now that everyone’s older and working, it’s sometimes hard to
meet during the week. If we meet early enough, we might actually have dinner before the cake
and ice cream; but, not necessarily, that doesn’t always happen.
After we have dinner, if we do have dinner, then we get out the cake, put the candles
on, light the candles… We sing Happy Birthday. Then, we also sing Sto Lat which is a traditional
Polish song that means may you live to be a hundred years. My grandfather was an immigrant
from Poland so that’s one of the traditions that we maintain in my family; although, my
father, my sister and I are basically the only ones who sing it. Now that I’m married
to a Mexican, we also sing Las Mananitas on the birthdays. So we have three songs, Happy
Birthday, Sto Lat and Las Mananitas. After cake and ice cream, we open cards or
maybe presents, if there are any. When there?s children involved, of course there?s presents,
but with the older family members, not necessarily. It kind of depends; it gets hard to buy things
for people in a large family. Mmm…birthdays in the United States are very
important for children. Uh, it?s very important to celebrate them at school. Normally, moms
will make cupcakes or buy cupcakes to bring into the class. They get to be very messy
so, teachers often try to have the parents send stickers or balloons or something else
but the kids always want something to eat. The silly thing is all they do is lick the
frosting off the cupcake and then the cupcake goes in the trash, or worse, on the floor.
But, the kids enjoy something to eat and it?s a special day for them, so we tend to let
the have it. Let?s see…what else can I tell you about
birthdays? Sometimes, because there’s many immigrants in the U.S., you might have a family
who has a different cultural tradition that they’ll celebrate with you at school. I’ve
had families from Egypt and families from Mexico bring in special desserts from their
country to share with us on their child’s birthday and that’s always an interesting
experience. Let’s take a look now at some idioms or
phrases that you can use when you’re talking about birthdays. One is, to be in your birthday
suit. Your birthday suit is what you were wearing the day you were born. Obviously,
nothing! It means to be not wearing clothes or to be naked. There’s, obviously, many
jokes surrounding this idiom and at the end of our conversation, I’ll give you one.
Another idiom that you can use is, over the hill. To be over the hill means to be too
old to do a particular thing. Some people say you’re over the hill when you’re forty.
Some people say you’re over the hill when you’re fifty, or sixty. Some people are
so young at heart that they’re never over the hill.
Another expression you can use is, to kick the bucket. If you go too far over the hill,
you might just kick the bucket. That, of course, means that you’ve died, you’ve passed
on, you’ve moved on to the other world. Another expression you might use related to
birthdays is, to have something up your sleeve. That means to be hiding something or hiding
a secret. Maybe you’re planning a surprise birthday party. That means you have something
up your sleeve. What you hope does not happen is that someone lets the cat out of the bag
or spills the beans. That means they let the secret out.
And, the last one is the best piece of advice I ever got on my birthday… “You better
keep your belly buttoned or you’ll lose your birthday suit!”
That’s all for today, I hope you enjoyed learning a little about birthdays. Join us
to discuss this topic in our discussion club or in the forum on our Facebook page.
Feel English and feel free! Bye for now.