Why A Birthday Cake? Why Candles? The 3,000-Year History
Learn the history behind birthday parties as well as where these common birthday traditions come from.
Quick Reference
- First recorded birthday: Pharaoh’s, described in the Book of Genesis (Chapter 40). A household feast with prisoners released for the day.
- Greek origin of candles: round honey-and-flour cakes topped with lit tapers, offered at the temple of Artemis to mimic the glow of the moon.
- Cake by messenger: Roman Emperor Hadrian (76 to 138 CE) sent birthday cakes to invited guests unable to attend in person.
- Modern birthday party: the German Kinderfeste of the 1700s, complete with candle for each year of life plus one ‘light of life’ in the center.
- Birthday cards: first sold in England and America around 1850, just after the Christmas card boom.
- Around the world today: Russian pie, Icelandic canned-fruit sponge, Dutch wish-list, Danish flag in the window.
Happy Birthday! Did you know the first birthday parties were reserved for royalty? Records were not kept of common people, so most birthdays went uncelebrated. Below is the long history of every ritual we still perform when the candles come out: the cake, the wish, the party, the card, and the traditions other cultures use instead. Every fact traces to a source, plus a few extra angles our editors turned up while cross-checking the 2009 original.
Historians place the earliest documented birthday feasts in ancient Egypt. The Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on birthdays notes the tradition ran through royalty, then Greece and Rome, and into medieval Christianity as name-day celebrations before the modern child’s birthday party emerged in 18th-century Germany.
The First Birthday?
One of the first birthdays recorded, Pharaoh’s, is described in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 40. The celebration featured a great household feast, with all servants and family invited, and prisoners were released from jail during this special day.
The Greeks were among the first to keep birth records for everyone (for taxes and military service), but only important heads of family celebrated their birthdays. Ordinary Athenian children got a small monthly cake to honor Artemis, the moon goddess. That monthly cake is the direct ancestor of the annual one.
By the 12th century, Christians routinely kept birth records and named their children after a patron saint, often the one honored on the date of the child’s birth. This custom led to the celebration of a name’s day rather than the day of birth for early Christians. A child named for St. Patrick celebrated the saint’s feast day, March 17th.
Why Candles?
To the ancient Greeks, birthday candles had special magic for granting wishes. That is why children today still make a wish before blowing out the candles.
The specific ritual traces to the temple of Artemis. Round honey cakes were topped with lit tapers to imitate the glow of the full moon, then offered to the goddess. The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage notes the smoke was thought to carry prayers up to the heavens. Blowing the candles out cleanly, in one breath, meant your wish would be granted.
Modern Kinderfeste practice adds one candle for each year of life plus a taller candle in the middle called the Lebenslicht, or ‘light of life.’ The child was expected to keep that center candle lit throughout the party.
Why Cake?
Birthday cakes also started with the ancients. Roman Emperor Hadrian, who reigned from 117 to 138 CE, sent cakes by special messengers to invited guests unable to attend his birthday celebration.
Cakes shifted from flat honey rounds to sweet leavened cakes with icing during the 17th century, when refined sugar and better ovens both spread through European households. By the 1800s bakeries in Vienna and London were selling multi-tier decorated cakes ready to pick up on a birthday morning.
Sending Cards
Birthday cards first turned up in England and America about 1850, shortly after the first Christmas cards. Sir Henry Cole, the same man who commissioned the first commercial Christmas card in 1843, is credited with pushing the greeting-card industry into everyday use, per the Victoria and Albert Museum archive on greeting cards.
Modern Americans send roughly 500 million birthday cards a year, according to the Greeting Card Association. E-cards and social-media birthday posts have not replaced the paper card so much as added a second wave of well-wishes that arrives on the phone.
Have A Party!
Birthday parties started with the German Kinderfeste, or children’s festival. In Holland, children make up a verlanglijst, excitedly jotting down all the presents they want.
The Russians have pie almost as often as cake, Icelanders go for canned fruit sponge, and the Danes hang a flag out the window on a birthday.
However it is celebrated, the birthday party has become an event that brings on a feeling of royalty. And in that sense, the most ancient birthday tradition lives on.
Birthday Traditions Around The World Today
The core cake-and-candle formula travels, but every country adds its own layer. A few reader favorites the Almanac has collected from folklore archives and reader letters:
- Mexico: the birthday child takes the first bite of cake with hands tied behind the back, face-first into the frosting, while friends chant ‘mordida.’
- China: long noodles at breakfast, uncut, to symbolize a long life. Cake is now common but the noodle bowl came first.
- Vietnam: everyone celebrates their birthday on Tet, the Lunar New Year, regardless of the calendar date. Babies are considered 1 year old at birth.
- Ghana: oto, a boiled-yam-and-egg dish, is served at breakfast for luck.
- Netherlands: crown birthdays (5, 10, 15, 20, 21, 50) get extra fuss. The birthday child wears a paper crown all day at home and school.
- Norway: the child stands at the front of the class and dances with a friend while classmates sing the Norwegian birthday song.
- Ireland: the child is lifted upside down and lightly bumped on the floor once for every year, plus one for luck.
The Almanac Angle: Birthstones, Flowers, And Best Days
Every birthday in the Almanac tradition arrives with a birth month flower, a birthstone, and a set of Best Days for the tasks that suit the season. The Farmers Almanac birthstone and birth flower chart pairs each month with its traditional and modern stones plus the flower colonial almanacs used to note in the family Bible.
- January: garnet, carnation.
- April: diamond, sweet pea or daisy.
- July: ruby, water lily or larkspur.
- October: opal or tourmaline, marigold or cosmos.
If you are baking the cake this year, our Best Days calendar shows the moon-phase-friendly days for cake baking, weaning parties, and starting a new tradition. Small, folkloric, and folded into the same 200-year-old almanac math we still print.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was the first birthday party recorded?
The earliest documented birthday celebration is Pharaoh’s, described in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 40. Ancient Egyptian royalty threw a full household feast with prisoners released for the day.
Why do we blow out birthday candles?
The custom traces to ancient Greek temple offerings to Artemis. Round honey cakes were topped with lit tapers to mimic moonlight. The smoke was thought to carry a wish up to the gods. Blowing all candles out in one clean breath was said to make the wish come true.
Who invented the modern birthday cake with candles?
The direct ancestor is the German Kinderfeste of the 1700s, which paired a sweetened wheat cake with one candle per year of life plus a taller Lebenslicht (‘light of life’) in the middle.
Why do the British sometimes call it a bumps birthday?
‘Bumps’ comes from the tradition of lifting the birthday child upside down and lightly bumping them on the floor once for every year, plus one ‘for luck.’ Still practiced in parts of Ireland and northern England.
When did birthday cards become common?
Commercial birthday cards appeared in England and America around 1850, right after Sir Henry Cole’s 1843 commercial Christmas card kicked off the greeting-card industry.
What do people eat instead of cake on birthdays in other countries?
Russians often have pie, Icelanders reach for a canned-fruit sponge, Chinese families serve long noodles at breakfast for a long life, and Vietnamese families eat sticky rice on Tet, since birthdays are celebrated together on the Lunar New Year.
Is it bad luck to celebrate a birthday early?
Folklore in Germany, Sweden, and parts of the American Midwest holds that celebrating before the exact day tempts fate. The Almanac’s practical view: pick the day that gets everyone at the table, and don’t tell folklore about it.
This article was published by the Staff at FarmersAlmanac.com. Any questions? Contact us at questions@farmersalmananac.com.
- Farmers' Almanac Staff
- Farmers' Almanac Staff
- Farmers' Almanac Staff
- Farmers' Almanac Staff
