Four students at Armijo share a birthday on Christmas. “Personally, what I like about having my birthday on a holiday is that I … get both Christmas and a couple of cool birthday presents,” said Kayla Ortega, one of the four. But Ortega admitted that the date does challenge the opportunity to have birthday parties with friends.

“I would love to have my birthday on Halloween and Halloween parties are way more fun,” said Ortega.

While Ortega is the only family member to have an unusual birthday, there are other notable ones in the family. “My grandpa and both of my parents have their birthdays after each other,” Ortega said, “with my grandpa first, the 9th of September, then my dad on the 10th, and my mom, on the 11th.”

“COVID has affected my birthday plans because we were planning to travel to somewhere out of state but now we can’t,” said Ortega, who also hopes to take a couple of months off to travel after graduation to gain a better mental space before going on to college. “I want to go to Penn State because it is really good for forensic science and I want to be a forensic investigator.”

Mario Ortega was born on December 25, too, but he does not celebrate birthdays or holidays. Jayden Tiemann and Angeles Zamora were also born on Christmas, but were unavailable for comment.