Around 2004, Vina Hutchinson’s friends gave her some advice as she reached the end of a difficult first marriage: “You’ve got to take back your birthday,” and have a birthday month, instead.

In particular, 2020 was supposed to be a special year. She planned to marry her fiancé of roughly a decade on Aug. 5, on her 54th birthday.

Hutchinson had already put her wedding plans on hold a couple times; once when her soon-to-be father-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and again when Hutchinson learned she had breast cancer in 2018.

When her fiancé asked what she wanted for her birthday this year, Hutchinson said: “I have everything I need. I just want you.”

Then, this spring, the pandemic hit. Her fiancé lives in the U.K. and couldn’t visit in August due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. And so Hutchinson’s birthday — and her wedding — were put on hold.

Instead, the Suitland, Maryland, resident and her daughter went to Giant and bought a birthday cake that they ate at home.

Hutchinson is among a number of Washingtonians whose birthdays were upended by the pandemic. Missing a birthday celebration may seem like a small inconvenience for some, but for others, birthdays offer an event to look forward to, and a sense of normalcy.

Some Washingtonians had big plans to mark milestone years. Meredith Duffy, a senior at George Washington University, was studying abroad in Portugal before the pandemic. She planned to spend her 21st birthday in April traveling with a friend, but was sent home in March due to the health crisis.

Duffy initially thought she might be able to go to a bar with friends to celebrate while at her parent’s house in Maine.

“Once I got home, I realized the severity of the pandemic and that I was not going to be able to go to a bar anytime soon,” Duffy says.

She ended up getting takeout pizza and playing “drunk baseball” with five friends in the front yard, an activity her parents OK’d as long as they drove everyone home after. (Duffy’s friends who attended had already turned 21).

“I still had a good day,” says Duffy. “It was very different from what I planned, but we were able to make the most of it.”

Her day wasn’t without its 21st-birthday-style antics, either. At one point, Duffy says, the front yard games “got out of hand” and a friend crashed into her dad’s folding table, which was holding the pizza and a pitcher of sangria.

“But I guess that was the price to pay for my birthday being at my parents’ house,” she says.

Other locals also got creative in the face of health and safety restrictions. Beth Gibson and her husband had originally planned to throw one, or even two, parties for his 30th birthday. But as the September date got closer, that looked less and less feasible for the Alexandria couple. Gibson decided to improvise.

Her husband likes puzzles and escape rooms, so Gibson planned a scavenger hunt around their home and neighborhood. She planted clues, including a word search and a math problem that led her husband to a friend’s phone number. That friend gave him the next clue.

He enjoyed doing the scavenger hunt so much that he told Gibson he was going to plan one for her, something they might never have done were it not for the pandemic. “We probably would’ve done the party or parties that we had already been thinking about and I wouldn’t have brainstormed to try and come up with this.”

Danny DeLorenzo, an attorney who lives in Germantown, took his celebration outdoors. He began visiting a campground in Clarksburg fairly regularly during the pandemic as a way to get out of D.C., where he lived at the time.

“I was doing my work from there,” he says. “I had my hotspot hooked up. I was taking conference calls in the woods. It was great.”

He’d gone camping for his birthday before, and for his 41st in July, DeLorenzo decided to take a three-day trip. He went with a friend, though she got her own campsite as a safety precaution, and friends and family came to visit “in shifts.” There were never more than three people there at a time.

DeLorenzo says the circumstances actually made it “more memorable” than his 40th, which he marked with a big party. He says celebrating “during this time was so much better than a normal day,” that it ended up being one of the highlights of his year.

He added, “It’s a pretty low bar for something being cool in 2020.”

Alicia H. Clark, a D.C.-based psychologist, says there are benefits to commemorating moments like birthdays, even if they aren’t particularly notable years.

“On a small scale, we know that just acknowledging positives and celebrating them is something that’s both good for our mental health, it’s good for our relationships,” Clark says.

And with “so many of our normal social anchors suspended in the pandemic,” celebrating a birthday with friends or loved ones, even online, can help “make it real,” she says.

“It makes it real to be with your best friend,” Clark says. “It makes it real to be with another lifelong friend, and in making it real, it makes it more special, and you’re sharing. And that just amplifies all of the positives of the ritual.”

She advises adjusting expectations for the day and marking that ritual, “because it’s important for you … and it’s important that it feel real and happy, especially now in the backdrop of so many disappointments and losses.”

Still, some have opted not to celebrate their birthdays at all. Jimmy Lee, who lives in Dupont Circle, typically would’ve gone to JR’s Bar and had drinks with friends. This year, though, he turned 53 alone in his apartment in July.

Because of the coronavirus, Lee was only going inside at places like Safeway and CVS when he had to.

“Nothing felt safe enough that risking doing something for that particular birthday would’ve been worth it,” he says.

Lee lost his mother to the coronavirus in May, and his sister and brother-in-law both contracted COVID-19. He says the disease was “very real” for him. As the public learned more about the virus, he tried to be as careful as possible.

“I figure it’s better to get to the next birthday than not,” he says. “So, 54, I’d rather get there than try to do something for 53 that’s gonna make my life unsafe.”

Lee also says he decided not to celebrate because “one of my defense mechanisms [for the pandemic] is just to try and treat every day like any old regular day, so that you’re not feeling like you’re missing out on something.”

For her part, Vina Hutchinson says that since having cancer, she sees every birthday now as “just a victory.” She and her fiancé intend to get married eventually, though they don’t have firm plans yet. She says she’ll make up for lost time next year.

“So, this year’s birthday month wasn’t quite the big celebration it usually is, but next year, you know, double the celebration,” she says. “Might have to amp up to a birthday season.”