How do you spend the day other than eating a piece of cake with your kid? It is not like when they were young. They have their own life with a new set of friends.
Depends on the kid!
First of all assuming they live close enough to see.
I have two that love celebrating and one that is like his mom and doesn’t want a big fuss. Regardless since they are adults we will celebrate with presents, a meal, maybe an outdoor hike - but we don’t worry about what day it actually happens - just usually sometime within a couple weeks or so of their bday.
Def not Chuck E Cheese. 
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It really depends on the kid and what your family does for birthdays in general.
Our daughters are 30 and 27 and we do birthdays together since they live in town. D1’s bf planned her 30th birthday party in October and H and I were invited along with all of her friends. We went to her favorite local wine garden then on to dinner and ended the evening at a dueling piano bar. We did a separate family dinner on her actual birthday to give her all of her gifts.
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Both of my girls are in town with me. We started to have dinner with just three of us for birthdays, no SOs. It’s my once a year get together with the girls. D1 has a baby now and D2 is very busy at work. It’s nice to have some time alone. It’s a different dynamic when it’s just 3 of us.
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We have never really been big on birthday celebrations, other than when the kids were young. We will have cake with them if they are around, but we don’t sweat it if we can’t get together. H’s mother & sister/her family always get together for each of their birthdays. They live 3 hours apart, so it’s not always easy for them to do that. It seems almost like a burden to us, and we are glad we live too far away to have to participate.
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I still try to make each birthday special (single parent, only child). We celebrate together when we can, even if not on her actual birthday. During college we planned a weekend for all the ones she was in the US. For one she was studying abroad. For that one I made a special e-card with family photos and planned a special day for her to enjoy. She is abroad again this year, so I planned some special surprises for her. I expect when she returns stateside we will continue to celebrate together over a weekend as work permits.
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It’s once a year for each girl. They celebrate their birthdays with their SOs and friends without me.
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We try to take the bday kiddo out for a nice meal, whenever we see said adult kiddo as near as possible to the birthday. If we are visiting the city they live in, great! Otherwise, next time they’re in same area as us.
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Unfortunately, we haven’t celebrated our son’s February BD with him since he left for boarding school at 14. He’ll be 25 in a couple of months, and that will mark 12 missed birthdays (see, I’m counting). But, if we were able to celebrate with him (and GF), we’d take them out for a fine dinner, and DH and son would enjoy some fine bourbon and cigars around the outdoor fireplace afterward. Not sure what I’d do with the GF…
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I haven’t been with son for his BD in 20 years. Our tradition is that I pay for a very nice restaurant. Now that he is married, he and DIL often spend a night in a lovely hotel.
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My 5 adult kids range in age from 18 - 25, we do the same thing as usual, try to pick a date as close to their birthdays as possible to go out to the restaurant of their choice, even if I takes 6 months. Even when they were younger they had so many activities that there was usually a large wait. The next birthday is 1/10, and my daughter will celebrate it on the day with her friends at college, going back on the 9th. Another daughter is turning 21 in March, she will happily celebrate that one with friends at college as well.
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Interesting thread. My kids are 20 & 18 and still living at home, so we do a dinner out or takeout during the past two years and homemade cake and gifts. If they want to get together with their friends we facilitate that, but D22, the 18 yr old, did not want to do that this year on her birthday. She saw friends later.
This topic made me try to think of what my parents did. They have both been gone 9 and 12 years now. And the truth is I really can’t remember very well. I think they probably sent me a gift certificate. That’s often what my M-I-L does for my husband. We live about 2.5 hrs away from her.
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Daughters are 23 and 20. Usually with the older one (1 hour away) we have taken her out to supper on or near the day. The younger one is 2 hours away and her birthday is very close to the start of the school year, so we’ve only gone down for one of three college birthdays. This year we bought her a TV in the summer for her apartment and said this is your birthday… If she lives closer after college we’ll probably do supper each year if possible.
When they are married/with families that might change. I think my parents just sent a card with money after I wasn’t living with them.
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Nor puppet shows! It makes it harder to make it special. This is the first time kid is in the area, driving distance in almost ten years. Before college, it was a party with friends. I could drive up to where they live and take them out for dinner. Not sure how special that will be. They often eat out.
When possible we try to take our kids out to a nice dinner to celebrate their birthday.
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If you don’t want to do a dinner out since they already eat out a lot then how about doing some kind of experience with them? Is there a concert or theatre production you could go see? Or a museum or art gallery? Skydiving or paragliding? I don’t know what the options are in your area, but all of these are options where we live.
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We usually do a dinner out at a place the kids would not normally go to. They eat out often, but normally not at $50-70/person places. Or we have a family barbecue dinner on our deck (easier because summer birthdays).
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Agree that we try to go to a very “nice” place which is a bit nicer than we or they would normally dine at. $100/person. When we are in their city, we let them choose and they are generally good at finding a nice newer place they’ve been wanting to try. Locally, we find a special place that none of us dine at except for more special events (often more expensive and/harder to get reservations).
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We made a special dinner and enjoyed watching a movie on TV after. But that was 2021. Previous years we’ve done something special, taken in a show usually, but often not on the actual date.
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Maybe I was crazy, but I have flown from another country or drove hours to celebrate my kids’ birthdays with them. My kids have also made it big for me. Last year for my 60th D1 took all of us to HI.
In my family it is not a birthday, but a birth month.
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