Yoruichi Shihouin: It's kind of sad, isn't it?
Birthdays are supposed to be a special occasion every year when a person's friends and loved ones come together to celebrate their life and show just how much they mean to them.
Not so for these folk. Unfortunately for them, their birthdays just so happen to coincide with larger, widely celebrated occurrences like national holidays and annual events. Think you'd get double the presents for a Dec. 25th birthday? Think again, you're more likely to get just one to cover both occasions. Maybe you thought you'd at least get a party. Not so if you have a New Year's Eve birthday; your celebration is likely rolled into larger celebrations for the coming year, if not forgotten entirely. God forbid your birthday is on a day of remembrance for a national tragedy, and let's not forget about those poor sad saps born on Leap Day, whose birthdays technically don't even exist 75% of the time. In extreme cases, the character may have Never Had a Birthday Party since their friends and family choose to prioritize the holiday.
In sum, if birthdays are days where you're meant to feel special, these characters rarely if ever get that chance due to their days being consistently overshadowed by other widely celebrated annual occurrences and they aren't too happy about it. This includes general sadness, frustration, resentment, and anger directed at the situation broadly or to their friends and family for not considering their feelings more about it. This sometimes leads to them becoming a Birthday Hater, but more often than not, their hate will be directed at the holiday or event that lands on the same day, à la The Grinch or Valentine's Day Vitriol.
While having a birthday on the same day as a national holiday is the most common way this trope shows up, other annual events also count. Having a birthday that always coincides with the Super Bowl in a big sports family can lead to this trope if the birthday-haver feels like their family cares more about watching the game than celebrating their birth.
One-time inconveniences however do not count. A character upset that the annual School Festival lands on their birthday this year when they've been able to celebrate their birthday just fine in previous years would not qualify, for example.
Compare Forgotten Birthday. May lead to One-Person Birthday Party or Not-So-Forgotten Birthday. For birthdays on which personal tragedy strikes, see A Birthday, Not a Break. See Birthday Buddies for when two characters share the same birthday and end up resentful or in competition with each other because of that. Generally overlaps with Significant Birth Date.
Examples:
- An omake of Bleach shows Urahara and Yoruichi celebrating their birthdays together but alone from everyone else. The reason for this is because their birthdays are December 31 and January 1, thus all of their friends are celebrating New Year's Eve and New Year somewhere else at the time. According to their dialogue, this happens every year.
- A Condition Called Love: Hotaru's birthday is on Christmas Eve, but every year she spends it with her family focused on preparing for and attending her younger sister's annual figure skating pageant. However, this year Hananoi takes Hotaru out on a date to explicitly make the day special for her and treat her like a princess. Downplayed as the kind Hotaru doesn't really resent her family's tradition, however she is so moved by Hananoi's prioritization of her that this is the trigger for the Oblivious to Love Hotaru's Love Epiphany.
- Itsudatte My Santa!: The protagonist hates his birthday because it's also Christmas and it contributes to his overall sense of feeling neglected and unloved. To make matters worse, his parents chose to name him Santa. However, he soon discovers that the kids at his high school do remember his birthday and when he shows up to a party they try to invite him in because they're celebrating him as well as Christmas, a revelation that starts to change his viewpoint.
- Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: All five members of the student council have birthdays that happen to fall on holidays, though the only one that it is actually relevant for is Kaguya. Since she was born on New Year's Day, she spends every year at the family home in Kyoto and has Never Had a Birthday Party. When she turns 17 roughly halfway through the series, she notes that the only family member who actually wished her a happy birthday was her ever unseen sister-in-law, though Shirogane did get her a necklace as a birthday present to commemorate their recent Relationship Upgrade.
- Monthly Girls Nozakikun: Mikoshiba's birthday is on Valentine's Day, so most of his classmates give him Valentine's chocolates as his birthday present, which he resents because he'd rather get a regular gift.
- Witch Watch: Keigo's birthday is January 3rd, right in the middle of New Year's celebrations. Although his housemates seem to have forgotten the fact before he brings it up, causing him to act coolly in response, it's revealed that they were actually faking, having already made preparations with a cake taking into account business closures for the holiday. However, a crescent-shaped decoration on the cake causes Keigo to unleash Wolf, who eats the entire cake in one bite, causing his housemates to now act coolly in response.
- In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever, Greg says that he feels bad for people whose birthdays fall during holidays (meaning they don't get extra gifts) and is glad his birthday is a few months before Christmas so he gets presents for both days. What follows is an illustration of Jesus receiving a gift from someone who says it counts for both Christmas and his birthday, with Jesus disappointedly thanking him.
- Arrested Development: Discussed when George, Sr. realizes he doesn't know his son Michael's birthday, and asks if it was hard to have a birthday close to Christmas.
- Kamen Rider Drive: Shinnosuke, the titular Rider, is a Birthday Hater because his birthday falls on Christmas Eve, which meant he's spent his whole life getting combined Christmas-birthday parties and presents. During the birthday depicted in the series, his Fair Cop partner Kiriko invites him out to dinner; he's happy at the prospect of a date, but is much less pleased when all their co-workers jump out and shout "Happy Birthday!"...and even less so when Da Chief announces that this party will also serve as the office Christmas party.
- Modern Family: In "Fizbo", Phil and Claire say that Luke's birthday gets lost in the holiday shuffle since it falls so close to Thanksgiving. They had actually forgotten his birthday the previous year and had to improvise with a cake made of stuffing.
- The Spike Jones song "My Birthday Comes On Christmas" is about a kid lamenting that he only gets one set of presents a year because his birthday is on Christmas.
- Tsukiuta's December Moe Anthropomorphism Idol Singer, Hijiri Kurisu, has a song about this called "I Hate Christmas". Her birthday is December 24th, and in the song, she says Santa is her rival.
- Comedian Bob Smith joked about this:
"Those of us with birthdays in December know what the Three Wise Men said to Jesus when they arrived: 'Now, this is both for your birthday and Christmas.'"
- Genshin Impact: Bennett is already The Jinx with a lot of bad luck, but to compound this even further, his birthday is on February 29th, i.e. Leap Day, so he was literally Born Unlucky. He laments that he can't fully celebrate his birthday every year like everyone else, so to compensate for his "lack of a birthday", he sends his birthday letters to the Traveler on February 28th instead.
- Cartoon Louis Tomlinson's birthday is on Christmas Eve (as in real life), and he fears throughout the The Adventurous Adventures of One Direction 3 that Harry has forgotten his birthday.
- Inverted in the RWBY Chibi segment "Happy Birthday-Ween". Ruby's birthday is on October 31st, the same day as Halloween, and she takes full advantage of it by taking candy from everyone and telling her friends to get her a costume for a Halloween party, which causes her to get on their nerves. This attitude does bite her hard when the costume they get her is a trash can.
- Amphibia: In "The Shut-In", it's revealed that One-Eyed Wally's birthday is on the night of the annual Blue Moon Shut-In. Since on that day everyone has to spend the entire night locked in their houses to avoid the Blue Moon's curse, that means that Wally has to spend every birthday alone.
- Cyberchase: In the Halloween Episode's "For Real" segment, Bianca's birthday is revealed to be on Halloween and nobody wants to celebrate it. Her younger cousins decided to share their Halloween candy with her.
- Scooby-Doo:
- In the Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! episode "Scary Christmas," it's revealed that Daphne's birthday is on December 25, which means it always gets overshadowed by Christmas. In the episode, she tries to get the others to celebrate her birthday instead of Christmas.
- What's New, Scooby-Doo?: In "A Scooby Doo Halloween", it’s revealed that Marcy's Birthday is on Halloween, but it is overshadowed by her parents' annual Halloween party. She decides to frighten everyone in revenge. After explaining her motive upon being unmasked, her parents feel guilty putting the holiday over their own daughter.
- South Park:
- South Park: The first Christmas Episode includes a mid-credits scene where Jesus is having a One-Person Birthday Party in his studio, implying this trope.
- Also alluded to in The Spirit of Christmas when Stan talks to Jesus and expresses his pity for Jesus having his birthday on Christmas.
Jesus: Tomorrow is my birthday. Yet all is not right.
Stan: Your birthday is on Christmas? That sucks, dude.
- Played with in Star vs. the Forces of Evil, where Star's birthday is revealed to be on Stump Day (Mewni's equivalent of Christmas), but rather than be unhappy about this, she actually wants people to celebrate Stump Day instead while her birthday is celebrated on a different day, to the point where she gets annoyed at Marco for throwing her a party on the same day anyway. This is because she believes the Stump won't be happy if its day is not celebrated properly, which no one else believes... Until everyone gets into a fight and the Stump comes for them, proving Star right.
- Star Wars Rebels: Not only does Ezra's birthday fall on Empire Day, a day celebrating the founding of the Empire he is rebelling against, but it is also the day he lost his parents. Who were taken away by the Empire and left him a street orphan.
- Robert Louis Stevenson once heard of a girl named Annie Ide, whose own birthday fell on Christmas and she was upset at having no separate celebration, so he gave her his own birthday as a present
, claiming it's not nearly as pleasurable for him as it would be for her.
- Ask A Manager once told the story of an employee who works at a company that gives perks on your birthday, including a day off and a bonus. However, one employee's birthday is Leap Day, which means she only gets the perks once every four years. She doesn't even get to have her name put on the monthly birthday cake!
- North Korea observes an annual mourning period around the death anniversaries of both Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il (July 8 and December 17, respectively). Among many other restrictions, citizens are banned from celebrating their own birthday should they happen to fall on either anniversary.
