Birthday Celebration How did the tradition begin?

Birthday celebration is one festival that no one is not interested in celebrating. And the most important part of this event is cutting the cake, blowing out the candles and singing “Happy Birthday to you”. But when did the birthday celebrations begin? At the same time, why did these accessories become important? When Did Cake Cutting Tradition of Birthday Celebration Begin Romans started the practice of cutting cakes on birthdays. Although they don’t just cut cakes around birthdays. They also cut delicious cakes made of flour, almonds, honey and various types of fruit cakes at weddings or entertaining guests.

Of course, not only the Romans, but also the Greeks and Indians on various occasions also introduced the practice of cutting the cake. Besides cakes, Indians also make payasam, kheer, jamun and traditional sweets. But as the Romans used to celebrate birthdays, it was not like that in India. In this subcontinent, only kings and maharajas used to celebrate their birthdays. The purpose was to drive away all the evil spirits.

But in Europe too, the ceremony gradually began to be restricted to only the rich society. The type of cake we use today made from flour or dough first came to market in the 1700s. Being quite expensive, it was cut by the upper class of the society. It took another two hundred years for its price to reach the common man’s level.

Why did they put Candles on Cakes to Celebrate Birthday?

The idea of putting candles on the cake comes from the Greeks. And the Greek goddess of water was Artemis. The Greeks used to cut the cake to please him. And the number of candles was one whose birthday was one more than his age. Then everyone would pray together after lighting the candle and try to extinguish the candle with one blow. According to their belief, the smoke from the candle will carry all the evil spirits to Artemis.

Origin of The Happy Birthday song to celebrate Birthday

But the Happy Birthday song came into vogue much later. The interesting thing is that the song did not write thinking about the birthday celebration. In 1893, two sisters, Patty Hill and Mildred Jane Hill, two teachers at a Kentucky school in America, wrote a song to welcome their students, Good Morning to All. The students of that school used to sing the song every day before starting school. Later the song became very popular. In 1924, Robert Coleman changed the lyrics to Happy Birthday to You. His song gained more popularity. And thus, the birthday celebration is complete with cake-candles-song combination.

Leave a Comment