The Cherry Ames Page: Birthdays and Unbirthdays

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Birthdays and Unbirthdays: Christmas Eve

Cherry had always mourned that her birthday came the day before Christmas, with unfortunate effects on the gift situation.

--From Cherry Ames, Senior Nurse, p. 86

"Have you thought about what you want for Christmas, Cherry?" Midge asked. "There's no sense in asking you what you want for your birthday. People who have birthdays the day before Christmas are out of luck as far as I'm concerned. It must be awful having them come so close together."

"It isn't awful at all." Cherry laughed. "It's fun celebrating two days in a row."

--From Cherry Ames, Cruise Nurse, p. 11

With a birthday falling on the day before Christmas, Cherry Ames enjoys double celebrations--till she reaches a certain age, that is, and begins ignoring birthdays altogether.

Before Cherry went off to become a nurse, she and her twin brother Charlie had annual birthday parties at home on December 24 with forty or fifty friends "playing games and stuffing on birthday cake"(Army Nurse, p. 14). Cherry continues to have festive and gift-filled celebrations once she leaves home.

Double, Double

Shortly before Cherry's nineteenth birthday--her first one away from home, at nursing school--Midge visits her at Spencer and explains to Cherry's crowd of friends that Cherry never got both Christmas and birthday presents "like normal people." Properly sympathetic, her friends surprise her on her birthday with two presents apiece--sort of--because "we all want you to be normal" (Student Nurse, pp. 152, 154).

The goodies include a pair of galoshes from Gwen Jones; a pair of pretty gloves from Ann Evans; a pair of white satin garters from Josie Franklin; a home-baked two-layer cake from Bertha Larsen; a pair of swan's-down powder puffs from Mai Lee; a pair of red velvet hair bows from Marie Swift; and a pair of colored glass roosters from Vivian Warren.

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As combination birthday-Christmas gifts, Cherry also gets a fluffy white nurse's sweater and a lacy slip from her mother; a fountain pen with her name on it from her father; white handkerchiefs with red cherries appliqued in the corner from Charlie; a huge box of candy from the whole family; a book from Dr. Joe; a calico heart pincushion from Midge; and a watercolor portrait of herself from her young burn patient, Winky (Student Nurse, pp. 154-56).

Wartime Sacrifice

Though Cherry's Spencer classmates ask her what she wants for her twenty-first birthday, she refuses gifts because of the war, and the girls decide instead to contribute the money they would have spent to a war fund. Of course, Cherry still receives some birthday-Christmas gifts: a warm red robe and matching furry slippers from her mother; bandage scissors and a bottle of perfume, with the note, "One way or another, you'll slay 'em!" (Senior Nurse, p. 97) from Charlie; a wool muffler from Midge; a book from Dr. Joe; and a half-dozen hand-drawn, hand-hemmed handkerchiefs made for her by her "adoptee," Mildred Burnham.

Her father sends a check, with which she happily purchases a sophisticated, lace-edged, black chiffon dress for the Christmas Eve dance she attends with Lex Upham. Cherry spends her birthday at the festive dance, but, when a nurse is needed to fill in on one of the wards, she goes on duty for the rest of the evening (Senior Nurse, p. 107).

Two Rings for Cherry

Cherry's twenty-second birthday is a whirlwind of excitement. In Panama with the Army Nurse Corps, she receives not one but two rings. The first is a memento from the malaria-stricken Indian whose life she saved; the second is a gold and opal engagement ring--a family heirloom--from Lex Upham.

But she finds out that she's being promoted to first lieutenant and chief nurse, and being sent immediately to an island in the Pacific. She gives the Indian ring to her corpsman Bunce Smith as a token of their friendship, and though she accepts the ring from Lex, she tells him she can't give him an answer yet about marriage (Army Nurse, pp. 209-11).

Bittersweet Birthday

Her next birthday finds Cherry in the European theater, serving as a flight nurse in war-torn Britain. Knowing she won't wait till her birthday to open her presents, Ann and Gwen helpfully hide them to keep her from giving in to temptation. Cherry is disappointed that no gift has arrived from Charlie (a lovely flowered silk dress he sent arrives late), but quite pleased with the gifts of food from her mother; a camera and film from her father; a book from Dr. Joe--"he always sent that"--and lace-edged underthings from Midge, which, though impractical, are "something civilized" (Flight Nurse, p. 134).

Ann and Gwen give her a leather writing case and an old silver powder box, and little Muriel Grainger gives her an unusual cup her grandfather brought from India. There's no gift from Lex, but there is a "Dear Cherry" letter, informing her that he has met another woman whom he intends to marry, but inviting her to keep the ring he gave her the year before. Cherry is rather forlorn about her lost love, but cheers up considerably when her pilot, Wade Cooper, presents her with a white silk scarf made from a parachute that had saved his life (Flight Nurse, pp. 138-41).

Twice as Nice

Back in the States as a Visiting Nurse, Cherry travels home to Hilton for Christmas and her twenty-fourth birthday, though no details of the celebration are given (Visiting Nurse, pp. 215-16).

Her twenty-fifth birthday is the last one celebrated in the series. Cherry discovers that she will be setting sail as the ship's nurse on a Caribbean cruise, and, since she will be away for her birthday, her family and friends have a surprise pre-birthday celebration at her Greenwich Village apartment. Among her gifts are a luxurious white terry-cloth beach robe from her mother; a "spectator sports ensemble" of sharkskin slacks, jacket, and blouse from her father; a two-piece American-beauty bathing suit of ruffled taffeta from Charlie; beach clogs from Midge; a large, matching beach bag from Dr. Joe (no book, this time); and a flowered cotton dance dress from the Spencer Club (Cruise Nurse, pp. 27-29).

Aboard ship, Cherry gets to celebrate all over again, with cabled birthday greetings, a little red and gold Christmas tree, and silly "stocking" presents: awful gardenia bath salts, a child's doctor kit, a little celluloid octopus, a miniature plum pudding; and a cardboard stocking filled with candied cherries. Her boss, Dr. Kirk Monroe, gives her an enamel pin of their ship, the Julita; her rambunctious six-year-old patient, Timmy Crane, and his mother give her a twin sweater set (one sweater for her birthday, the other for Christmas) in red angora wool, which is "red and very fuzzy-wuzzy" (Cruise Nurse, p. 207), Timmy explains; and piratical Henry Landgraf, with whom she engages in a battle of wits and sleight-of-hand, gives her a tiny bottle of expensive perfume to remember him by (Cruise Nurse, p. 210).

Old Enough

No further birthdays are mentioned in the series--although we learn that Cherry was in Hilton over the Christmas-birthday period before she went to Kentucky (Mountaineer Nurse, p. 15).

One book (Department Store Nurse) takes place entirely in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but Cherry's natal day is conveniently forgotten. Still, Cherry does have a rather exciting "unbirthday" day. She works in the department store infirmary till nearly six in the evening on Christmas Eve, staying with an ill shopper till her family can fetch her. Then Cherry sees a coworker steal a rose diamond necklace, trails him in a taxi, and ends up chasing him through Idlewild airport.

After the thief is caught, Cherry is interrogated at the police station, then heads to a Spencer Club Christmas Eve party with her beau, Tom Reese, before flying to Hilton the next day.

The story "Christmas in New York" likewise does not mention Cherry's Christmas Eve birthday, though it details the preparations for a festive holiday party at the neighborhood settlement house.

Maybe her friends forgot. Or maybe Cherry just decided it was time to stop counting.