Sweet Birthday Traditions in England

by Gurdev
(Sacramento)

Our family’s birthday traditions in England were always full of sweets and good cheer. My family prepared lots of food for the occasion: traditional Indian dishes as well as British traditional dishes.

And always, freshly baked yellow sponge cake served with warm, homemade custard!

As a special treat, my friends and I would each get a handful of change to go down to the corner store and buy sweets. The British chocolate company Cadbury’s had my all time favorite candy bar, Flake.

The birthday party officially began with the serving of the cake and blowing of loud party favors. One very popular game we always played during a birthday party was "pass the parcel."

The children sat in a circle and passed to each other a parcel wrapped in multiple layers of newspaper (a parent played music as we did this). When the music stopped, whichever child was holding the parcel would unwrap a layer of newspaper. At the end, the child who unwrapped the last sheet of newspaper got to keep the prize!

The prizes were normally little things, so parents often 'cheated' to make sure that each child got to have at least one.

British birthday festivities are very similar to American ones, although I would say British games and sweets are much better!