Making birthdays special when they've not been special to me

I'm dating a guy from a totally different non-western country (international student) and because he's here without his family I decided I would have to go all out for his birthday. I mean. I'm typically the person that goes all out for people's birthdays.

I'm just worried about if he asks how I celebrated my last birthday was like because... Like. It was forgotten. I'm the self assigned party planner at work and no one thought about the fact that I wouldn't be organizing my own birthday, then my dad forgot about it so we all had leftovers for dinner. No cake. And then I went out to an event and some new friends learned that it was my birthday at the event (expected wed only known each other a couple months) and they were really nice in wishing me a happy birthday.

But my birthday has been forgotten a lot. By family. By friends. By others etc. Like it's a bummer but it's whatever, there's not much I can do about that.

But I'm worried about bringing the mood down. This isn't a boohoo no one remembers my birthday fest. This is a YAY! IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY! Fest of a new boyfriend. We can talk about it some other time but it's not the time for that then.

How are some ways I can rebuff any questions to not be all depressing. Do I just maybe recount a few old good birthday memories? Or just be like "it's not MY birthday it's YOUR birthday, so what do YOU want to do?"

Or something like that?