Celebrating your birthday... especially in France.

A cake worth making room for in my special day.

Joyeux anniversaire à moi. I celebrate my birthday this week so I decided to find out if there are any different practices in France for this occasion.
First, I would like to mention that in the United States, if you are an adult, you are reminded your birthday is coming up by businesses and non-commercial groups alike who send out birthday greetings well in advance of your birthday. You may want to dine at their restaurant, donate birthday money, remember that you are an alumni of their school, want a free car wash this month, take advantage of their free shipping, and the list continues. Even our accountant usually sends a card.

As the years go by, I am beginning to warm up to all this non-personal attention.  The truth is, the older you get the less ones around you make a point of making you feel special on that day. However, depending on family genetics and history, after one passes the 70th birthday the action begins to pick up a little. 

Especially young adults begin to realize that you're going to live forever. Appropriately, they begin to identify with this as they age. They may not have a bucket list yet, but they become aware that it might be a good thing to create. By the time you reach your 80s maybe somebody will throw you a birthday party again. You will feel free to abandon caution and eat cake. My dad disliked cake and loved apple pie, so for his 80^th we made him great apple pie for his birthday with candles. 

According to Laura Lawless, the French birthday song is as follows: 
The French birthday song is very simple and is sung to the same tune as "Happy Birthday to You":

   Joyeux anniversaire
   Joyeux anniversaire
   Joyeux anniversaire*
   Joyeux anniversaire

*The person's name may be sung very quickly at the end of this line.

According to abuela Nanny on Yahoo Answers:
"Adults usually have a dinner out or a meal at home with "a little something" extra. Special birthdays, such as 21, and all the zero ended years may have a larger celebration. (I had over 50 guests for both my 50th. and 60th. and my brother in Lyon had the whole family and friends for his 40th.... and his 65th.). Birthday cards have become popular in the last couple of decades, before that there was little choice."
It appears that birthdays weren't ordinarily celebrated in France in the "old days". It was someone's Saint Day that was the big deal of the year. (All French people used to have to be named after a saint. I did not make that up.)

So, expectations in France at this point are about the same as ours when it comes to celebrating birthdays.