I haven’t done a lot for my birthday this year and I don’t know if I’ll be doing much else. As I said before, I’m ok not celebrating as much as I used to, especially with how busy I’ve been with work and other things. But I do still like to celebrate and continue traditions when I can. And the tradition I look forward to the most is going to Truxton’s with my birthday twin, Joanna. We aren’t exactly sure how long we’ve been doing this, but we know it’s been at least 11 years, which is a pretty long time. And while we rarely can do our dinner on our actual birthday, we get it done within our birthday month.
2 years ago, we ordered take-out and had our dinner as a picnic since that was the safest way for us to have a meal. Last year, we were able to return to the restaurant and eat there. And this year, we continued with having dinner at the restaurant. If either of us felt uneasy about doing that, I know we could have done a picnic again. But I’m glad that eating there was an option for us. And because we went on a random weeknight, there was almost nobody else there so that helped us feel like things were a bit safer.
As we have done since the birthday deal changed to a dollar amount and not just a free entree and free dessert, we knew we’d order an appetizer to split, entrees for each of us, and a dessert to split. In the past, our meals have been completely free. And if we only ordered entrees we could have done that. But it’s ok that it’s not free anymore because we still get a total of $40 off of our bill, which is usually almost the entire thing.
We knew we wanted to have monkey bread to start, so we ordered that and ate it while we looked at the menu to figure out what else we wanted for dinner.
And once we ordered the rest of our meal, it was time for our catch-up chat. We had seen each other a few months ago when she helped me put together my bed. So there wasn’t as much to catch up on as there normally is when we get together for dinner. But we both had updates on our lives and our homes. When she was helping me with the bed, the renovation wasn’t done so I updated her on that. And she’s also going to do a renovation on her place so she updated me on that progress with planning everything and picking out what she wants. And as always, we had some gossip about dating and other random things that have been going on in our lives.
For our dinners, I had a burger and she had nachos. We’ve only had delicious meals at Truxton’s and we both really enjoyed our meals. But since we knew we’d be having dessert, we tried to save some room and not fill up too much.
We do like to give our server a heads up that we are using their birthday club coupons since sometimes they have to do the bill a different way (lately, they split the bill and then apply one coupon to each half to let us use both). So when our dessert was brought out, they put candles on it and sang Happy Birthday to us!
We got a new dessert, and I think we picked the perfect thing! It was a lemon cake with strawberry sorbet on top. It wasn’t too heavy, which we needed after a big meal, and it was so flavorful! I’m glad that’s what we picked because I think some of our favorite desserts would have been just too much for us.
Our meal wasn’t free, but it was pretty much under $10 for each of us so we could leave a really big tip. What we’ve been doing lately is tipping $20 each since that’s what our coupons take off the bill. So we spend the same amount we would have without the coupons, but that also allows us to leave a nice tip for our server and hopefully make their day a bit better. I love that we have always paid it forward because I know sometimes people who get a discounted meal tip on the discounted amount. We like to make up for that.
We were both really full after dinner, but it was worth it. This is one of the best birthday traditions and I think my birthday wouldn’t have felt complete without it. And since I rarely go out for dinner these days, it feels like a real treat.
I’m not sure if Joanna and I will be able to hang out again before our traditional cheesecake outing around the new year, but even if we don’t see each other until then we know we will have another great catch-up when we have our next meal!
You Might Also Like
Almost Free Birthday Dinner (or Spending My Birthday With My Birthday Twin)
Belated Birthday Dinner (or We Don’t Mind It’s Not Totally Free Anymore)
Birthday Twin Tradition (or An Almost Free Meal)
Birthday Twin Dinner (or Zero Dollar Bill)
Continuing The Birthday Celebrations (or A Birthday Twin Adventure)
An Almost Free Meal (or Amazing Food And Crazy Dating Stories)
