Do You Have Favorite Birthday Traditions?

We have two birthday traditions in our house.

The first is the birthday letter.

Every year on the girl's birthday we write them a letter about their year...the ups, the downs, the most special moments, the things we never want to forget. Jamie writes one and I write one. Eventually they can write one to each other if they are interested.

Then we gather together, usually in our bed and we read the letters to the birthday girl. We laugh, we cry, we hug a lot.

We have no pictures of that.

Our second tradition is the one you see pictured above.
The Dreaded Nose-Buttering. 

At some point on your birthday, and you don't know when, you will be caught off guard and attacked with butter.
A buttered nose = you've made it another year!
Hooray!

As you can see, Pippa isn't loving the buttered nose.
Don't worry, she will. 
Winnie used to run screaming and now she's the first one asking for a buttered nose (or doing the buttering!).

It's a tradition I loved/loathed as a kid and I'm carrying on the tortuous torch.

I've heard of so many great birthday traditions:

• A special birthday plate for the birthday kid
• Cupcakes for breakfast (in bed!)
• Talking about the moment they were born, at the exact moment they were born
• Helium balloons for every year of a child's life

I think the key is to pick 1-2 traditions and really stick with them. 

Too many/too complicated of traditions and you'll abandon them.
The consistency of a couple of loved and highly anticipated (or, in our case, feared!) birthday events/activities are more than enough to make the special and make years of memories.

What are your birthday traditions?