Being born on Dec. 24 was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
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I’ve come to expect a certain kind of response when I tell someone my birthday: a sympathetic frown, a pat on the shoulder, a few lighthearted words of support. That’s because I was born on Dec. 24, and everyone knows—or thinks they know—what a bummer having a birthday on or near Christmas must be. This view was articulated emphatically on this week’s episode of the ABC comedy Happy Endings, in which we learned that Jane’s real birthday is on Christmas Day. Jane (Eliza Coupe) has been pretending her birthday is on Jul. 16 for decades—she even carries around a fake ID bearing the summer date—because “when your birthday is on Christmas, you get completely forgotten about.”
