My husband was born on a Christmas Eve.  On a wintry night in Chicago.  South Side.  In a home not far from where Barack Obama and his family currently live.  A stately home, a walk up, no longer there.

Although this was decades ago, his mother typically went to the hospital for her babies, so I'm not sure why she didn't with him.  He came early, I expect, and surprised her.  At home.

He was the youngest after a trail of many sisters and a brother ten years older, and he brought with him another surprise.

He was a twin.

His mom clearly didn't know she was having twins, gave birth to my husband, and then a little girl came along.  A twin sister.  Who didn't make it.

I ask my husband's older sisters in Chicago about this occasionally, and don't learn much.  But it's clear from the start that my husband has always been a twin, even though his sister didn't survive.  And he's spent his life in search of that other  half.

Like most Christmas babies, my husband's birthday got shoved aside, lost in the shuffle, and it shows.  It shows every year around this time of year.  He went from being the kid whose birthday and Christmas presents got all mushed together, to the parent and grandparent whose birthday and Christmas presents got all mushed together, the kid in the corner fading in the holiday limelight.

For years, we flew back up to Wisconsin at Christmastime, sometimes going from 90 degree Florida sunshine to minus double digits Wisconsin deep freeze in one day, but the birthday somehow still got lost in all of it, and it made him melancholy.  In addition to cold.  And miserable.  So, no sense being miserable and cold.  He decided to stop doing it.

Then, several years ago, we hit on the brilliant idea of moving his birthday to his half-birthday, on June 24th.   Thinking this was a capital idea, we started doing this on a particularly big birthday and threw a particularly big birthday bash and invited lots of friends and relatives for a three-day extravaganza.  We were sure this would catch on, and tried it a couple more times with less extravaganza, but it never really took hold with the rest of the family, and died a natural death.  The last big birthday we celebrated in Vegas over a Thanksgiving a few years ago, thinking maybe we could get more enthusiasm for that, and did get a respectable showing of family gathered to pay tribute.

I feel sorry for Christmas babies.  I appreciate their predicament.  My husband never really gets the birthday he deserves at the holidays, never really.  We go out on Christmas Eve now to a favorite restaurant decked for the holidays and sit outside under the palm trees in the warm Florida evening air and celebrate.

Celebrate his life.  Celebrate his birth.  Celebrate that he is still with us.  We steal a moment from the holidays and celebrate it. 

So here's to my husband.  Christmas baby.  Twin.  Youngest child.  Student.  Warrior.  Captain of industry.  Father.  Grandfather.  Brother.  Uncle.  Husband.  Man among men.  

Here's hoping you find your birthday amid the Christmas bustle. 

The photo going out on our Christmas cards this year, my husband taken earlier this summer in the Wisconsin northwoods.