Birthdays are meant to be the one day of the year where friends and family can celebrate just one person: you.

However, when your birthday is overshadowed by a major holiday, it can be a little hard for others to distinguish one festivity from the other.

I understand that inconveniently-timed birthdays are not many people’s problems and absolutely no one’s fault. Still, having a birthday consumed by a large holiday makes one feel like just a speed bump along the road to something better that everyone is pining for.

My birthday is December 23, just two short days before Christmas. Throughout grade school, the same people repeatedly could not show up to my party because they were always in the same place visiting the same relatives for the same holiday. The friends that did manage to show up simply saw my birthday as practice, a warm-up for an even better celebration just a couple of days away.

Another annoying aspect of having a birthday that’s near a huge holiday is that the birthday loses its identity to the holiday that shares its proximity. Although my parents do try to give distinction to my birthday, I can’t ignore my little pile of presents that are garnished in red and green striped wrapping paper and the gift bags that have Santa perched on top of a flying reindeer.

While my unlucky birthday situation is rare, I am certainly not the only one with these sorts of problems. Many kids are born near major holidays; sometimes they are born on them.

I have a few friends whose birthdays fell on Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving, fortunately for them, is a rotating holiday so these people don’t have to constantly dread having their birthdays on one of America’s major holidays. While my friends don’t have to suffer through gifts that have turkeys adorning their wrappers, they sadly do not have their choice of meal, largely deducting from their sense of integrity on their birthday.

Although my birthday is untimely and inconvenient, I must recognize that I’m not the only unlucky one and there are plenty of other people who have it worse than me. After all, this is the only birthday I have and I might as well make the most of it.