Well. for a school "boy", birthday during vacation is a good excuse for him to "escape from his friends", if you know what I mean, some "ritual" are pretty...well, let's say "rough". But sometimes they don't even care, they just postpone it... In my senior high, even birthday teachers can be victims. They are pros, they know what they're doing, they take their time, they get the job done.
Even I spent my last birthday in the mountains, my friends still thought about executing the ritual, right in the mountain (maybe all those trees are just too inspiring.) Glad the mountain roads worn them out.
PS. Guess where the sentence in bold fonts is quoted from.