When I wrote about how to develop your culture’s timekeeping ideology and methodology last month, I concluded with a brief section on “lifespans and personal timekeeping.” Y’all expressed interest in a post that focused on that topic specifically (and I was recently inspired by a letter in which Tolkien went into great depth about the birthday customs of hobbits, which I highly recommend checking out as an example of this done well), so here it is! Let’s talk about birthdays.
To Celebrate or Not to Celebrate
The first thing to consider, of course, is whether your culture even celebrates birthdays in the first place. As I said in my general timekeeping post,
In a society that thinks more communally or that doesn’t make a big deal of keeping time, birthdays might not even be a consideration; it may not much matter how old you are as long as you’re doing things with your life. The same may be true in a culture that sees time as something designed by a deity; to mark time around your own life may be seen as selfish and even idolatrous.
But there are options between Continue reading “Birthday Celebrations in Fantasy Worlds”