Birthday is a long-awaited family holiday that brings many pleasant moments, from which the best memories are made. There are many different opinions, sometimes completely opposite, on the history of the origin of the tradition of celebrating a birthday every year.
According to one of the versions, birthdays began to be celebrated in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, but only the country's rulers and gods were honored with this honor. Nobody celebrated the birthdays of commoners, and no one even wrote down the dates of birth of women.
Christians in the fourth century AD began to celebrate the name day or the day of the Angel, in honor of which the Christian was given a name at baptism. Usually they gave the name of the saint whose day of veneration was closest to his birthday. Some families still adhere to this tradition and name children after saints. Since the day of the Angel and the birthday often coincided or followed each other, people began to celebrate these two events on the same day.
Probably, children are most happy about their birthday, because it brings them only joyful moments, a lot of gifts, the attention of parents, adult relatives and friends. The tradition of celebrating children's birthdays came from Germany, where this holiday came into existence in the 13th century, and in Russia it took root only two centuries ago. But in ancient times, the birthday of children was not noticed at all and was not considered an event. Although in the pagan tribes it was on the birthday of the child that rituals of scaring away evil spirits were arranged in the presence of close relatives, since it was believed that it was on this day that people were most susceptible to various influences of "dark forces". Therefore, probably, people still celebrate their birthday surrounded by the closest and dearest people in whose love and devotion they are sure. The festive rituals, which they try to observe, came from the pagan faith and are observed to protect the birthday person from evil spirits.
The tradition of giving birthday gifts also came from ancient times. When celebrating the ruler of the country, he was presented with gifts by the kings of neighboring countries, the leaders of the conquered peoples and local vassals with words of praise and wishes of longevity and wealth.
Many peoples still do not consider birthday a holiday and do not celebrate it, but they keep counting the years. In modern life, a lot depends on age: the beginning of school years, graduation from school, obtaining a passport, coming of age, serving in the army, retirement. At first, people happily count the years of growing up and becoming, and then sadly notice their transience.
