On Birthday Cakes for Children, Then and Now

I mentioned in an earlier post that the employee cafeteria at Hallmark Cards where I worked used to bake and decorate special-order cakes for employees to purchase. They would even match the cake decorations to the party goods that Hallmark used to sell.

In my efforts to simplify my life as a working mother, I made use of that service many times. Most of the birthday cakes that my kids had growing up were made by Hallmark, not me. Here’s my daughter with her Ballerina Bear cake for her fourth birthday.

I also bought cakes from Hallmark for my husband’s birthday, though I did not subject him to Ballerina Bears. He just got the standard flowers or confetti Happy Birthday cake.

I did not have Hallmark cakes for my birthday, because my husband was responsible for my cakes. Instead, my cake was usually the famous Nadine Spanner Hot Fudge Cake or an apple spice cake.

Once our kids left for college, we had to abandon Hallmark cakes for their birthdays. But my husband was a strong believer in the necessity of cake for birthdays. So he found local bakeries in their college towns, and later in their young-adult apartment cities, and ordered them birthday cakes.

Once in a while, he baked the kids cookies for birthdays, instead of sending a cake. But mailing cookies (unless done via overnight mail) usually results in stale cookie crumbs, which are not quite as festive. (My mother used to send me cookies at college, and I typically had crumbs to share with my friends.)

Sometimes my husband waits for the last minute and orders the cake on the day before the birthday, and occasionally even on the morning of the birthday. I think he knows when the actual dates are, but I’ve taken to reminding him a few days in advance. But I let him handle the cake orders—it’s his gift to his children.

Ordering cakes long-distance isn’t quite as nice as ordering local cakes. The kids have to go pick up their cakes, whereas I brought them home from work when I bought Hallmark cakes. But the kids usually manage to get their birthday treats on time. After all, it’s cake.

One other problem with long-distance cake ordering is that the celebrant’s name can be misspelled. Of course, that can happen with locally made cakes also, but it seems to occur more frequently when ordering over the phone instead of on Hallmark’s official cake order form. Last year, my daughter got a cake for “Mary,” which is not her name, though it’s close.

Yesterday was again our daughter’s birthday. True to form, my husband ordered her a cake from the bakery down the street from her house. The same bakery that misspelled her name last year. He was careful to spell it out and have the order-taker read it back to him. Other than the misspelling, last year’s cake was a culinary treat, and we are hoping this year’s is equally good. I’m sure we’ll hear from our daughter if it is not.

How do you handle birthdays for far-away family members?