Our family’s newest birthday tradition is my favorite one ever.

It’s rather simple. It includes my local troop of eight — my family of four, my parents, and Betsy’s parents.

In the weeks prior to one of our birthdays, an anticipatory question emerges: “Where are you going to pick to go for your birthday?”

“To go” refers to going out to eat, per the rules of our relatively new tradition. The person celebrating the birthday gets to pick a place to have a meal, and the eight of us converge for an evening of laughing, eating, and just catching up.

We’ve toured the various eateries of our community. We’ve had Italian, Chinese, and Mexican. We’ve eaten at longtime local hangouts, up-and-coming trendy spots, and a couple of places that don’t exist anymore. We’ve had breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

My wife, ever the creative one, even decided to have her birthday dinner at home. We made pizza crust and got toppings and we all enjoyed a “make-your-own-pizza” night. My father-in-law even plans on organizing a euchre tournament as part of his.

If evenly distributed, our birthdays would fall about every six weeks. That would be just enough time for us to always be looking forward to the next outing.

But, as with many families, our birthdays tend to be bunched on the calendar. We have two Aprils, a May, two early Junes, an October, and two Decembers. In fact, in the spring, there is about an eight-week spell when five of our eight celebrate another year.

Like bears waking up from hibernation, we eat well that time of year.

In this era of our life, in which Betsy and I toggle between work and running our kids around, it is nice to have simple pleasures to which to look forward. It is even nicer to share this time with our parents.

I tell our family all the time, “These are the good years.”

I know that I will always look back fondly on our birthday dinner tradition.

Dinners out have had significance through the various phases of my life.

When I was growing up, I loved the nights my parents took us out, normally on a Friday, something of a celebration for an incoming weekend of freedom.

When I was a teen and in college, it marked fun times with good friends. We’d talk and laugh as if we didn’t have a care in the world and as if the people at the other tables didn’t exist.

When Betsy and I were first married, it was a cherished meeting point. A time of connection and familiarity. A true treat for a young couple crunching pennies and just starting out.

A restaurant is where we celebrated our incoming first child with the same people who are now part of the club (minus our two girls!). It’s where we were just before Betsy gave me the signal that it was time to go to the hospital just before Isabelle’s birth. It’s where my former boss first planted the seed in this sports editor that I was fit for leadership and that I should become our paper’s editor. It’s where we made the decision to uproot our family and move to Ohio. It’s where we discussed our parents’ future move to Ohio with them.

No vacation for us can start without a good meal out, and, when we’re feeling like life is getting a little too busy or mundane, we plan a family dinner out. With phones down, it always centers us.

I think this current one is my favorite stage. Time with our parents is something we look forward to, as the three-generational time together is something that we realize we’re blessed to have.

For us, the Birthday Club is a smashing success.

Alpena native Jeremy Speer is the publisher of The Courier in Findlay, Ohio, the Sandusky (Ohio) Register, The Advertiser-Tribune in Tiffin, Ohio, the Norwalk (Ohio) Reflector, and Review Times in Fostoria, Ohio. He can be reached at jeremyspeer@thecourier.com.