Local author recognizes holiday birthday struggle in kids' book series

RIO RANCHO —Many kids who have a birthday that falls on a holiday, especially Christmas, know what it’s like to get one gift for both and the disappointment of having a birthday overshadowed by a holiday.

Samantha Bresnehan, a Rio Rancho resident of 11 years, realized how important recognizing a kid’s birthday separate from a holiday is when her daughter was born on Christmas Day six years ago. That influenced her to write a children’s book called “Happy Christmas Birthday.”

“My daughter Noel was born on Christmas day in 2017. We were extremely excited because my whole family loves Christmas. We love birthdays. We thought it was like the best combination to have both in one day, and we were just really ecstatic about that. We started looking for things when she turned 1 and 2 that combined Christmas and birthday concepts, and there really wasn’t anything out there,” Bresnehan said.

She and her family researched the birthdate and discovered it is one of the rarest birthdays. According to the U.S. Census, Christmas Day birthdays happen rarely because hospitals don’t generally schedule cesarian sections on holidays and C-section births are more common today. Besides Christmas Day, New Year’s day and Christmas Eve are the rarest birthdays for the same reason.

Bresnehan says while they enjoy her daughter’s birthday being on Christmas Day, they make sure to separate the two.

“We don’t do anything else that’s combining them necessarily, but we have set aside this time because we did hear from a lot of people with December and Christmastime birthdays and some people that we know that have Christmas Day birthdays always felt their birthday was overshadowed by Christmas and just the busyness of the season in general,” she said. “So many people told us [to] definitely acknowledge the birthday separately. Don’t combine gifts and say, ‘You’re just getting one big gift that acknowledges birthday and Christmas.’ Don’t use Christmas paper to wrap birthday presents and vice versa.”

The book gets into that by following a kid’s point of view of a day. Bresnehan’s book encourages the kid to look at their Christmas birthday with positivity. The kid in the book takes in Christmas traditions like the Nutcracker ballet, decorations and other things as if they are specifically for their birthday.

Bresnehan also allows personalization in the book by having pages for family to write notes or for the kid to draw a picture. In the beginning of the book, the kid can write their name as well.

“We just wanted to make it super positive, and that’s another reason for the book, just to highlight all the things you can do to make the birthday really special and happy for the child,” she said.

The book isn’t just for kids.

“I think it gives parents some ideas of how to make the birthday even better and to put that positive spin on having a holiday birthday,” she said.

The book also includes questions to keep it interactive and interesting. The personalization of the book also allows families to have the book as a keepsake.

Since “Happy Christmas Birthday” came out, Bresnehan has written other holiday birthday books, including “Happy Halloween Birthday” and “Happy Thanksgiving Birthday.” The books are available at Barnes & Noble, on Amazon and other online book sources.