Good question, Snookums. Let see, we celebrate birthdays with parties, games, cards, cakes, candles, gifts and singing ‘Happy Birthday To You’.
Growing up Lizzie could have had a birthday party, which included games and a gift:
… for a truly old-fashioned birthday, you'll need a house full of servants and room for a ball. Brushing up on your manners will also help. In the early 1800s, well-heeled Victorians seized on the notion of a children's party as a way to showcase their wealth by simultaneously indulging their children and instructing them in etiquette. Even party games had a socializing function, such as teaching the boys how to lead in formal dance. Party gifts were from parents to child, and significantly, sometimes from child to the servants. The unmistakable intention of the party "was to teach children the manners they would need to assume their place of privilege in society." Consequently, birthdays were large and extravagant, orchestrated by the mother, usually with the help of a sizable staff.
http://tinyurl.com/kgp4svg
Growing up Lizzie would have most likely been given a Victorian Birthday Card:
Birthday Card History is said to be over a hundred years old. Though there is no record to tell us who send or received the first birthday card but it said the tradition of sending Birthday Cards began in England a century ago. In those time people used to personally greet a person on a birthday, but when a well-wisher was unable to do so he send a Birthday Card. Thus Birthday cards were more like an apology at that time.
http://tinyurl.com/p7p4hhz
Lizzie probably had a birthday cake:
Due to the continuous improvement of kitchen appliances during the 19th century, cakes became affordable desserts, but differentiated cakes assigned to specific festivities, like birthday cakes, only rose to popularity during the second half of this century.
Birthday cakes were more common for children's party, and were gaily decorated with sprinkles and colored candles. They didn't say "Happy Birthday!", since that phrase only became popular in the 20th century, they said "Manny Happy Returns," or a similar phrase, followed by the person's name.
http://tinyurl.com/nfc3ps7
Lizzie’s birthday cake may also have had lit candles, which she would then made a wish and blew them out:
About 200 years ago, cutting a cake during a birthday party began in Germany. As Germans were skilled at candle-making, they started putting tiny candles around the cake and a big candle, representing the light of life, in the centre.
The tradition of blowing them out also began around then, partly out of superstition and partly for fun. The birthday person is supposed to make a wish, and if blown out in a single puff, the smoke would carry the wish heavenwards, and the gods would grant the wish.
http://tinyurl.com/oqm4f95
Growing up Lizzie would
NOT have had the ‘Happy Birthday To You’ song sung to her:
The origins for this song date back to the mid-19th century. The melody was composed by two sisters, Patty and Mildred Hill, who introduced the song "Good Morning to All" to Patty's kindergarten class in Kentucky. Years later, in 1893, they published the tune in their songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten.
It is unknown who actually wrote the lyrics to the Happy Birthday song and put them to the Hill sister’s melody.
The first book including the "Happy birthday" lyric set to the tune of "Good Morning to All" that bears a date of publication is "The Beginners' Book of Songs", published by the Cable Company, a piano manufacturer, in 1912.
http://tinyurl.com/o468md4
It is unclear who owns the copyright to the song:
http://tinyurl.com/zaxa5
I did find an interesting article that you may be interested in:
Victorian era birthday celebrations were extraordinary, classic, extravagant and amusing just like the Victorian era. It was a tradition to mix symbolic objects into the birthday cake as it is being prepared, objects such as coins and thimbles were mixed into the batter. People believed that the person who got the coin would be wealthy, while the unlucky finder of the thimble would never marry.
Also, when it's your birthday, your friends give you the "bumps" which is when they lift you in the air by your hands and feet and raise you up and down to the floor, one for each year, then one for luck, two for luck and three for the old man's coconut. They usually also drank "squash" which is an orange or lemon flavored drink made from syrup (rather than a powder).
http://tinyurl.com/ntgrgx2
Can’t you just see Andrew, Abby, Emma and Bridget lifting Lizzie into the air by her hands and feet, then lowering her down to the floor until her bottom bumped the floor?
