By Beth, Danielle and Deb Liu

This week, my little sister, Danielle, turns 13. To celebrate, she agreed to co-write this month’s column with me. She will be named Tiger Cubby (which for the record was not my decision), and I will be weighing in as Tiger Cub. 

Tiger Cubby 

I used to think birthdays and celebrations at our house were quite normal. For our birthday, our parents allowed us to pick a party or a vacation. If it was a year I had enough friends, I would pick a party. Vacations are an obviously better deal though. Except my birthday is in October, so the timing was always a bit off. 

My brother always picked a vacation. His birthday is in July, and he hates parties. I always wondered if my parents were a bit relieved because they were going to take us on vacation anyway, so they got out of hosting a party every year. But I never asked. 

Also our parents never gave us actual birthday presents. 

Tiger Cub 

That’s honestly a good point. One thing to note though, is that our parents only began recently painting it as a choice between travel and a party. When we were smaller, it was always a birthday party, which I honestly really appreciated. I lowkey have a conspiracy about the whole birthday or travel thing. My birthday is at a bad time of year, it doesn’t line up well with travel, and so is yours, but Jonathan’s always lined up perfectly with vacation. I’m partially sure that they began doing the whole travel or birthday thing just so that he couldn’t complain about doing nothing for his birthday. 

Tiger Cubby 

Tiger Cub, you’re so cool and awesome and always right. Your conspiracy is 100% true.

Another thing that we do differently which I like is that you and Dad let us choose what dessert we want for our celebration at home. For many years, you would buy us different flavor donuts instead of cake. I don’t really like cake because it is too heavy, but I love to pick my own favorite donut. You make little birthday signs to go on the stacked donuts which makes it look good with the candles. I always chose the maple old-fashioned donuts, but now I realize the superiority of raised donuts. 

I also appreciate that you and Dad allow us to choose anything we want for our birthday dinner. Usually, Jonathan chooses homemade sushi or sticky rice, two of his favorite foods. This year, I have decided to choose a hard-to-get-into ramen restaurant. I am quite excited because we always eat at home or go to the same few restaurants. 

On a related topic, I always thought our Christmases were normal just like our birthdays. They always told us Santa is not real. I never understood why other kids believed in him. 

Instead of individual Christmas presents from “Santa” or our parents, as soon as we were old enough, we hosted a family Secret Santa which let us connect and learn about each other’s preferences. It was fun and allowed us to utilize our critical thinking skills to figure who has who. Secret Santa is a very fun way to celebrate Christmas without some people getting fewer presents than others, though my brother always got Mom, and he always forgot to get her something… 

Tiger Mom 

Your aunt and I grew up with your immigrant grandparents who didn’t quite “get” the whole Christmas thing. We grew up Christian (and still are), so we did celebrate at church, but at home, I think no one explained how the whole Santa premise worked. Your grandparents were terrible at keeping secrets, so they would go shopping with us there and something I saw them buy would show up in a stocking with a note in my mom’s handwriting that said, “From Santa”. We never really believed Santa, so when we had kids, we had to decide how to celebrate.

When we were pregnant with your brother and cousin respectively, we decided that we would not pretend Santa was real. Instead, we would explain the meaning of Christmas and why it was so important to us. I remember watching Jonathan and Noah playing when they were both about 6 and they said, “Santa is not real, but we can’t let other kids find out.” 

Tiger Cub 

I honestly have mixed feelings about the whole Santa thing. I think it gave me a superiority complex for a good while in preschool. I didn’t know why Santa was such a big deal for a while and I thought I was so much better just because I knew he wasn’t real. 

But if I’m being honest, I don’t really mind how our family celebrates Christmas as a whole. For a few years, you guys did those Christmas presents. Like the piano or the Nintendo Switch. I’m sure you can tell which one of those I liked more. But I always 

thought that it was a fair way to celebrate Christmas. That way we all get a present, you guys get amusement by siccing piano on us for eight years and we get the quintessential Chinese American experience. 

And honestly, while you guys never really provided us with gifts, our grandparents always gave us red envelopes or cards with money for our birthdays and Christmas. Even though you guys always claimed to take the money to put in our college funds while fraud happened under your noses (Tiger Cubby definitely stole some of the money under the guise of giving it to you), we always appreciated the sentiment. They would pick really cute store bought cards and write “from grandparents” in them. I still have this arcade themed card that they got me for my 9th birthday. The lights no longer work, but playing the sound makes me remember how happy I was when I first received the card from them. It was my favorite for a long time.

Tiger Mom 

Your grandparents were not good at birthdays or holidays. They worked incredibly hard to figure things out in American culture, but they never quite got it. We didn’t mind, but I remember when I was 12, I baked my own birthday cake. We never got a lot of presents, and birthdays were a low key affair. But your grandparents did take us to the local Shoney’s because the birthday kid ate free! 

While your aunt is a great gift giver and very thoughtful, I lack that gene. So for your cousins, we have been putting away money every month for them for college in lieu of actually sending presents. While it was not fun to have an aunt who didn’t give presents, they now appreciate it since they have enough put away to pay for a part of college. 

We value experiences more than money, so each year we do the huge family trip together with them and that is my gift to your Uncle, Aunt and cousins. This past year it was to the British Isles, but based on this, we have seen so many amazing places in the world together. I look forward to continuing this tradition for many years to come. 

Tiger Cubby 

Though our family doesn’t do things like everyone else, I am still happy with our traditions. We still talk about some of the epic (and terrible or missing) gifts from secret Santa. We like that you frame and hang up our silly drawings all over the house. 

I like our traditions and hope to carry them on with our Cubs too!

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