A World of Birthday Celebrations
You may think birthdays mean only cake, presents, and a joyful sing- along of “happy Birthday.” However, there are many varieties of birthday celebrations. In the West, many birthday traditions come from an ancient belief that evil1 spirits showed up on a person’s birthday. To drive troublemaking spirits away, friends would visit each other on their birthdays. Today, people still get together for birthday parties. But around the world, birthdays are celebrated in many different ways.
In eastern Canada, children get their noses greased2 with butter on their birthdays. The butter is supposed to make children too slippery3 for bad luck to stick to them. Irish people lift birthday children upside down and bump4 them on the floor for every year of their age. Mexico also has a unique birthday tradition. A papier-mache animal is filled5 with candy and toys and hung from the ceiling. The blindfolded birthday child then tries to hit the animal with a stick until it bursts6 open.
異域傳真：各國慶祝生日方式大不同
你可能以爲生日就只是生日蛋糕、生日禮物以及大家一起唱“生日快樂歌”。然而，慶祝生日有很多種不同的方式。在西方，許多生日傳統都與古人相信邪靈會在人們生日當天出現有關。爲了把招致麻煩的惡靈趕走，朋友們會在生日時互相拜訪。到現在，人們仍聚在一起開慶祝生日會，但世界各地的慶祝生日的方式都不盡相同。
在加拿大東部，兒童過生日時會在鼻子上抹上奶油，奶油可以讓孩子滑滑溜溜的，如此一來，厄運就不會沾上他們。愛爾蘭人會把過生日的.小孩倒過來舉起，他們過幾歲生日，就把他們往地上輕撞幾下。墨西哥也有獨特的生日傳統。他們在混凝紙製成的動物造型裏裝滿糖果與玩具，掛在天花板上，接着再由矇住眼睛的小壽星拿着棒子，使勁把那隻紙製動物敲破開來。 生日祝福生日短信生日作文生日笑話生日彩信生日圖片
