Page 11 - Exercise 8A

Page 11 - Exercise 8A

Birthdays in Britain

On your birthday you get cards and presents from your family and friends. Parents often buy a big present. Like a bike or Mp3 player. Other people give toys, sweets, books, clothes, CDs, DVDs and things like that.

People normally have a birthday party for their friends. There’s usually a birthday cake. With one candle for each year of your age. The person with the birthday blows up the candles, and makes a wish. Then everybody sings happy birthday. People often have a party in their own home. Some older children don’t have a party. They take their friends to the cinema, a bowling ally or something like that.

My friend Karl in the Czech Republic says they have ‘name days’ in his country. But we don’t have ‘name days.’ Karl also says that people in the Czech Republic give flowers on name days and birthdays. In Britain, we usually only give flowers to women. Alison and I give flowers to our mum on her birthday.