Sort upcoming birthdays based on current date

Question

I have the following table of people and their birthdays:

name        birthday
----------------------
yannis      1979-06-29
natalia     1980-08-19
kostas            


        

Answer 1

i would try it like this (but this isn't tested):

SELECT
  name,
  birthday
FROM
  birthdays
ORDER BY
  ABS( DAYOFYEAR(birthday) - (DAYOFYEAR(CURDATE()) ) ASC

EDIT:
changed ordering from DESC to ASC because you want to get the farthest first, not the closest.