I went to my niece‘s b-day lunch today and I brought the cake for her party. I nearly had a panic attack when we were doing the candles at the thought of her blowing her little kid germs all over it. I’d never thought of how gross this tradition is until today. 
(How old is she?)
About a year ago, the topic of the tradition came up on a local radio station that I listen to every weekday morning, especially the part about germs being spewed all over a cake just before it’s divided up and distributed to all participants to devour a piece. They took calls from listeners, many of whom said they never eat birthday cake that had candles blown out on them. Some people, however, were on the side of “all little children are saintly, angelic, perfect beings”, and therefore it’s hateful to assume that anything bad could be emitted from their bodies. It was hilarious to hear the arguing back and forth.
My wife’s nephew turned six years old a week before the COVID19 shutdowns, and that’s when his party was held. He did blow out the candles, and because his parents are ‘lennials, they had to film everything for proper uploading onto the internet (of course). This required several takes, so they relit the candles each time and had him blow them out again. By the final take, he was not only bored but also out of breath, so each effort was a spittle-filled exasperation of emptying his little lungs onto the blue frosted top. Ewww.
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She’s eleven, I cut my sister off from taking the cake over to her with lit candles and we figured out an alternative so that she could still blow out her candles and make a wish without blowing germs all over the cake:)
I found it odd that it had not occurred to me before today how disgusting this tradition is.
Did you eat a piece of your wife’s nephews cake? If so, you have the koodies now.
I’ve never liked the way pounds and pounds of frosting are dumped onto cakes, I find it way too thick and way too sweet, so I always scrape it of and just eat the cake itself. That‘s what I did at that party too.
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Randy D 