Today is Simon's birthday and, even though we are staying over at a friend's house, I was sure to wake him up with a wet washcloth to the face. This is how I was traditionally woken on my birthday as was my father before me. I don't really know how far this tradition goes back.

The impetus of the tradition is simple enough. It's to make sure you have a clean face at least once a year. In this way it's somewhat akin to changing the batteries in your smoke alarms when you change your clocks for daylight savings time.

As straight-forward as this family tradition seems (to me, at least) I've been surprised to find that this seems to be unique to our family. So I'm just curious if anyone else out there practices this tradition or, if not, what are your peculiar family traditions surrounding birthdays?