Why Not Celebrate Your Half-Birthday? Here Are Our Best Tips For A Fun Day

A birthday is the one time in the year that everyone can celebrate. It's special, and not just because you can spend the day getting freebies. So if you can, why wouldn't you want to celebrate it twice? 

Before you start rolling your eyes and raining on our party parade, hear us out. There's a case to be made for celebrating half-birthdays, and a strong one at that. If your birthday happens to fall near a major seasonal holiday, you may be tired of always playing second fiddle to the celebrations. Alternatively, your birthday could fall at a time of the year when your near and dear ones are traveling, so you can choose to throw a party six months later when everyone will be sure to attend. Or you could simply have a desire to celebrate your birthday in a different season of the year than the one you were born in.

Most importantly, celebrating your half-birthday is just one of the many ways to show yourself self-love. Why shouldn't you celebrate being alive and well for an extra six months? It is, after all, the perfect excuse to take a much-needed break from your stressful daily grind.

If you are keen to celebrate your half-birthday, you might as well be precise about the date of the celebration. Generally speaking, there are two ways to calculate this date. The simplest way is to start with the date of your birth and count it forward by six months, so January 25 would simply become July 25.

However, this isn't the most scientific way of calculating your exact half-birthday because every month has a different number of days. For example, if you are born on August 30, you cannot celebrate your half-birthday on February 30! To be more precise, you should add or subtract the number 182.5, which is half the number of days in a normal year, from your birth date. Subtract 183 for a leap year.

Half-birthdays can become an important tradition for you and your family. Take it from Dr. Kenneth Herman, a board-certified clinical psychologist and author of "Secrets from the Sofa," who tells Care., "Usually half-birthdays are called to attention by very young or very old people. The young are saying they want you to know they have progressed past their given age. The older folks want full credit for living so long. ... I say, if it makes one feel better by calling attention to the half year, it is worth acknowledging."

As children, our birthdays were celebrated with much pomp and fanfare by our doting parents. If we were lucky, they even celebrated our half-birthdays. So, why do we shy away from celebrating this day as an adult? Is it because society tells us it's a silly practice? In reality, half-birthdays are a great tradition to follow when transitioning from childhood to adulthood as it allows us to keep our childlike spirit alive.

Freelance writer Natasha Marsh makes a strong case for celebrating a half-birthday in her column published in The Zoe Report. "I believe these types of mid-year festivities can also have positive effects on those around me in that they offer an excuse for a mental reprieve and some much-needed "me" (or, in my case, "we") time," she says. The celebration of a half-birthday is a self-care practice that "allows one to break away from the day-to-day mental strains and dial into the lighter, brighter moments in life."

After the gloom of the past couple of years, her case for pursuing happiness in any form is a strong one. If a simple celebration like this one can make you feel happy and loved, why wouldn't you pursue it?

The easiest way to celebrate this mini-milestone is to throw a party, but make it different from your regular birthday parties. Try and focus it on a theme or venue you would never be able to access on your actual birthday. So, December-borns can enjoy a pool party and summer babies can look forward to having a party around a winter theme.

Create a fun menu with a themed cake — or possibly a half-cake in the spirit of the occasion! You can splurge and buy yourself a gift, but be sure to tell your guests not to bring any — that may be asking for too much twice a year. If you are not keen on a big celebration but still would like to mark the occasion, perhaps you could treat your significant other, bestie, or parents to a meal at a nice restaurant, or just call them home and pop that bottle of champagne you haven't gotten around to opening as yet.

A half-birthday celebration with a little bit of imagination can be very memorable and tons of fun.

For Marsh, the best way to celebrate her half-birthday was by jetting off to Cabo San Lucas with her closest friends and leaving her laptop and all her work worries behind. Some may argue that this celebration was just an excuse for a trip. While this may be partly true, what set it apart was her intention to celebrate herself. Switching off from work — something she almost never does as a freelancer — was an important step in her self-love journey. Being able to share the moment with those she loved most, made the event even sweeter.

Similarly, a grand gesture or expensive party is not the only way to make your half-birthday memorable. Simply taking the day off from work, going on a road trip, indulging in a guilty pleasure, or doing something you have been meaning to do for a while but haven't found the time for, are some other ways in which you can celebrate the occasion without feeling guilty about it. So, go on, have that slice of cake. It's your half-birthday!