It is warming up all along the San Diego Coast - why not take a trip out to Temecula for a day of wine tasting?

Our friends at Temecula Wines have composed a list of the top wineries in the region.  Visit the link below to check it out.
http://www.temeculawines.org/taste/winery-listing.php

Carlsbad Limousine's expert and knowledgeable drivers can help guide you on a day-long, half-day or custom tour of your preferred wineries.  The region is known as a wine-lover's gem in our own backyard.

If you are tired of the normal coastal routine, give a wine tour a try... you will not be disappointed!

Tracking the Birthday

Believe it or not, birthdays were not always treated as the special events they are today. In fact, there are many households that spurn overzealous celebration nowadays. Even so, the entire congratulatory experience may seem weird. After all, isn’t it just a congratulations at having lived one year longer? That being said, the actual history of the celebration remains inconclusive, but that does leave room for some very interesting theories. 

The Beginning

Scholars on the lookout for the first mention of a birthday in the way we use it point to a biblical reference dating back to around 3,000 BCE. Unfortunately, there are other scholars that argue the text simply refers to the pharaoh’s date of ascension to god-hood, not an actual birthday celebration. Following this, it was the Greeks that added the next bit of party to the term. Originally, the Greek men and women would bake cakes for Artemis and then light candles on these cakes to make them appear more lunar in honor of the goddess’ domain. Many agree that this tradition then transferred over to birthday celebration. Finally, however, it was the Romans that actually began celebrating the everyman’s birthday, and this does mean every man, not woman. Some of the more prominent figureheads even got full on public holidays. 

Slow Evolution

It should come as no surprise to hear that the church, following the Roman Empire, did away with birthdays entirely. After all, a celebration by a pagan people was clearly evil. This ban lasted for a few hundred years. It wasn’t until they wanted to celebrate their own deity’s birthday that the rule changed and inevitably led to the common folk celebrating once more. Interestingly enough, though, it was the Germans that put together the idea of a birthday and the addition of cake and candles. This tradition was typically enacted for children and always featured an extra candle for good luck. However, this practice didn’t really become widespread until sugar was industrialized and made affordable for those that didn’t come from affluent families.

In the final act of the birth of the birthday, two women wrote a song in 1893 that was originally meant to be sung before class every morning by students across America. The tune turned out to be catchier than the words, and in 1924, the birthday song we all know and love came to be published.

According to Hollywood, a bachelor and bachelorette party should be events of legend. It is the last night of freedom, after all, why should it be anything less than a debauched celebration that's gossiped about for years? However, the celebration of the end of premarital freedom is an ancient practice that has its roots in a tradition that was a little less about drinking and more about honoring.

If we go with historical records, the first semblance of a bachelor party showed up in ancient Sparta around 5BCE. During this, the groom's friends would throw him a feast and the party would make toasts in the groom's honor. Being Sparta, one can only guess what kind of toasts were made. This tradition continued on through the ages. While there aren't many records of crazy parties going on through these early years, the media was quick to report on it once the cult of personality began establishing itself in 1896. In this year, Herbert Barnum Seeley's stag party was raided by police. Then, in 1949, Jimmy Stewart's affair resulted in a midget dressed as a baby trying to pee on him. Since then, Hollywood has been nothing if not promotional of ill-fated parties.

The bachelorette party, on the other hand, didn't get going until much later. Before the 19th century, women were only allowed bridal showers where they received gifts and dowries. It wasn't until the 1960s and its sexual revolution that women began holding their own bachelorette parties. Even then, it remained an oddity well into the 1980s. The first book on the subject didn't even hit shelves until 1998. Unlike the bachelor party origins, the bachelorette parties dived straight into the more sexualized aspects, with women joining together to talk about their own sexuality in addition to sometimes partaking in male strippers.

As far as what goes on at each, both are pretty similar. Rude jokes are shared, a lot of alcohol is consumed and strippers may or may not be present. In America, common parties are often destination events to places like Las Vegas. In the UK, the parties are more than just single day events, stretching out over the entirety of a full weekend. Even so, it's also very common everywhere to party with the groom or the bride in a fashion that fits what they enjoy doing. Including camping, fishing and video game nights, these parties are only a raucous as the bride or groom wants them to be.

No matter where you live, throwing some kind of celebration for the bride and groom is tradition that goes back centuries. To cultures around the world, nothing is more worth celebrating that a man or woman's final days before they are officially tied to one person.