#happy birthday to all my november hanleia peeps

[lajulie24]

Han/Leia, how they tend to celebrate their birthdays?

This seems to be a very timely ask, seeing as it comes on a week with a lot of birthdays in the HanLeia fandom. (Happy birthday to all our November babies!) Hopefully I can do it justice.

Growing up as a princess on Alderaan, Leia’s birthday had always been something of a public celebration as well as a private one; in fact, many years they did the family celebration the day before so that she could have a day that was just about her. After the Death Star, she didn’t really want to celebrate it…except that all the Alderaanians knew when it was, so she couldn’t really avoid it. And when it came out that Leia’s birthday was the same as Luke’s, basically Luke’s celebration got extended to hers. But it always felt weird because it made her miss her family even more.

Han knew when his birthday was, but hadn’t celebrated it in years. Chewie knew when it was, and respected his wishes to keep it low key, but always made a point to mark the day in some way, because Life Days are important. (Chewie’s pretty wise.)

There’s something about going through the horrors of Bespin, and Jabba’s, and the rest of the war, that makes both Han and Leia shift their thinking about birthdays. There’s almost a switch that goes off in Leia, that she’s tired of just existing and if she ever gets out of this mess, she vows at Jabba’s, she is sure as hell going to live. She has a similar thought on Endor when things look really bleak.

So on hers and Luke’s next birthday, they do it up right, as Han would say. A little private family dinner, and then something of a blowout with their other friends, and at some point in the evening Han and Leia slip out for a little private celebrating, like you do.

And Han kind of catches the fever, too, and for the first time in years, he lets the Skywalker/Organa twins throw him a party for his birthday. Chewie does the cooking (neither of the twins are particularly skilled in the kitchen), but there’s whiskey, and card playing, and cake, and a lovely princess dragging him away later on for a private celebration.

And there are solemn bits to their celebration, too, and sometimes Leia takes a page from her previous life and does something to honor her family the day before her actual birthday. Han takes her to the Graveyard one year, which you think would be morbid but actually kind of…makes her feel happy to be close to her parents again. And Han actually talks about his mother for the first time since some of their talks on the way to Bespin. One year, after she and Luke learn more about Padmé Amidala, they go to Naboo and bring flowers to her memorial, which actually reminds Leia of Bail and Breha (who often did a similar observance in honor of Leia’s birth mother, although they didn’t tell Leia who she was).

That got a little more serious than I’d planned, but…thank you for the ask!