Hello January Babies! You are truly lucky to be born in January. Not only is your birthday free of being over-shadowed by the present-wrapping and merry-making of December, but you have National Bird Day to celebrate in your birth month to boot!
Now you might not be much into birds, but you should be. Birds are fun to watch, many are surprisingly colorful and they provide an awesome springtime soundtrack.
My sister, Poppy, had an early love for birds, and I had an early love for wordplay. It was a match made in heaven—if heaven were a place of birds and corny phrases.
This is how the first BIRDday Celebration came to be. It was December of sixth grade and I had the clever idea of throwing my sister, Poppy, a BIRDday Party instead of a Birthday Party.
Poppy’s winter-centric BIRDday party featured cold-weather birds like penguins, robins and snow geese. I also threw in a few snowy-white dinosaurs* and a snow-breathing dragon** just to make her really light up.***
When my BIRDday rolled around the following summer, it featured a quirky avian assortment of flightless birds like dodos and kiwis, chickens in a rainbow of hues, and a collection of birds wearing hats (I have a special place in my soul for birds that wear hats).
Ever since then, Birthdays were always referred to as BIRDdays—at least between Poppy and me.
So, as another year begins and your birthday comes into view, remember the birds. Put out a bird feeder (or two). You might be surprised at the variety of feathered visitors that come around to brighten your special day.****
—Jellybean Reds, Creator of Little Creatures
*According to Poppy, birds were just dinosaurs going around incognito—sort of like superheroes going around pretending that they are just your average joe schmoes living down the street.
**Poppy loved dragons even more than she loved dinosaurs.
***Of course, my dragons and dinosaurs were more on the funny and silly side than the elegant and bejeweled designs that Poppy would truly appreciate.
****If you really want the birds to appear on your BIRDday, start putting out the bird feeders early. Birds take a while to come around, they’re skittish that way.
