Candles, wishes, and the history behind our birthday cake traditions

A crowd gathers around the honored one. The group recites its ritualistic chant as a flaming platter of confectionery is brought into the center of the circle. The flames sit just beneath the face of the honored one, who must extinguish the blaze without anyone’s help—but thankfully, this rite of passage is performed annually, so the honoree is prepared. The chant ends, and a moment of silence befalls those gathered as the honored one closes their eyes in meditation before exhaling forcefully upon the offering. The ritual is now complete. Happy birthday!

Across the globe, different cultures have special ways of celebrating a person’s birthday. In Russia, it’s a personalized pie with a kind message carved into it just for the recipient, and in Chinese culture, longevity noodles are eaten on special occasions like the New Year and birthdays. The length of the noodles symbolize a long life for the person eating them. The “sing happy birthday and blow out the candles” way of doing things is the tradition throughout the United States, but the practice has its roots in European culture.

Like pretty much everything else in history, the tradition of blowing out candles might have started because of a desire to please an all-powerful being (or beings) in the sky. Going back to the ancient Greeks, round cakes were baked to honor the goddess of the moon, Artemis. It wasn’t a birthday, exactly (more of an offering), but candles were put on the cake to represent the glow of the moon, and when the candles were blown out, the smoke from them would carry wishes up to the gods. Though I like to think the day I was brought into existence is significant enough to merit godly attention, I admit that the magic of this tradition probably wore off a long time ago.