My favorite birthday to date has to be when I turned 23. I had recently started dating another medical student in January named J. Being a real sweetheart, he wanted to organize a huge party for my birthday. He invited a bunch of our mutual friends from medical school. My two closest friends, L and A, made my two favorite desserts in the whole world: créme brulée and très de leché. We stuck some candles in them and I blew them out. I didn't make a wish because I couldn't think of anything but eating the desserts already.
A lot of other people brought dishes. One guy made a Coke (the soda)-marinated chicken, which was really neat. It was my first year of medical school, so everyone was still getting to know one another and I was really touched at how many people came. After we ate, we carpooled over to a laser tag building and played laser tag. Another group of maybe third graders were playing at the same time and hilariously, they were much better than us. We lost horribly, but everyone had fun.
Usually, my mom would celebrate my birthday by making an ox tail noodle soup for me with a long type of noodle as a symbol for longevity, and that was about it. Not that I didn't appreciate it, but I'd never celebrated my birthday with so many people. It was probably the first time I saw how fun a birthday party can be.
