Dol

The Koreans have a lot of traditions, a whole lot. One big tradition is the celebration of the first birthday, called Dol.

Googled explantion

In the past, due to a lack of medical information, Korea's seasonal temperature differences, and many childhood related diseases, the death rate for children was extremely high. Many children died before their first birthday. After the age of one year, the survival rate steeply increased, making this milestone a very happy one for the child's parents. It has also been a custom to celebrate a child's 100 day birthday (baek-il) , but in most areas this birthday is less important than the Dol and any celebrations are smaller in scale.


Traditional Dol Celebration
The traditional celebration had four major components:
1) Praying and giving thanks
2) Making and wearing the birthday clothes
3) Preparing the table and performing the Toljabee
4) Sharing the food with guests and neighbors

In modern times, due to the improvements in medicine, the influence of Western culture, and modern industrialization, the Shamanistic reasons for the Dol celebration have been reduced. However, the event is still celebrated as a time of congratulations for the parents and family.

In the modern Dol, taking picture is an important part of the event. As many Korean homes are very small, many families rent a room in a banquet hall. The modern celebration includes the child's parents greeting guests, lighting candles on a birthday cake, the Toljabee event, and a toast.

The tradition is still very important as a cultural celebration but since Elle is only half Korean, it is somewhat stressful to come to a compromise with A-man who like most westerners believe that since the baby won't remember it, just make it small.

My mom is Korean, and if you know any korean moms you know that it is hard to change her mind when it comes to doing something SHE wants you to do. The last conversation I had with her ended with her saying that "I don't ever listen to her" To that I told her that, I don't have to. Elle's dad doesn't want to spend thousands of dollars that we don't have to rent out a banquet hall with crappy food.

If we had the money, I would no doubt make it as big as I could possible make it but since we're not in that boat, we decided to rent out a nice room somewhere like a park center, cater really good food, and keep it simple. It's less than 7 weeks away and I'd really like to send out invitations so I really need to come up with something but we still haven't found a place. I hate that this is stressing me out. I hate that the first celebration of my baby's birthday has to come in between my mom and I, and I hate that I have waited this long to plan it. But I was told of a place that I'm going to check out today and I really hope that we can rent it. It's cheap and nice. The two factors that I've been looking for. Fingers crossed!!