The Old-Year Kicking Party Parties on: Day 5: If you could invent a holiday ... ?

[capri0mni]

So, we're all gathered here to celebrate the New Year (more or less). And what is a year besides a collection of holidays, and other observances, with long stretches in between?

Most holidays have their roots in Long Ago. But some are modern. There's "Star Wars Day" (May the Fourth), and International Talk Like a Pirate Day (19 September). And this year, the idea for Wolfenoot went viral.

If you could invent a new holiday, or three, what would it be? Or, if you're happy with all the ones currently on your local calendar, which is your favorite?

• Name (Tentative): Vernalia
  
• Time (Tentative): 40 days after the Winter Solstice (so it would be celebrated ~30 January in the Northern Hemisphere, and ~30 July in the Southern Hemisphere).
  
• Purpose: To celebrate and honor all the “Green People” (plants) on the Earth, and to honor our connection to them (especially the oxygen we breathe).
  
• Reasoning behind the Date: 40 Weeks is roughly the period of human gestation, so 40 days reminds us of that connection (see also: the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter in the Christian Calendar). Also, it’s still winter, but winter is loosening its grip, and we are psychologically ready to look forward to the greening.
  
• Special foods: anything flavored with herbs -- special treats: minty things, fruity things.
  
• Appropriate gifts: packets of seeds appropriate for your region, small potted houseplants
  
• Special Greeting: “(May you) Breathe Easy!” (All greeting cards are made from Recycled Paper, natch!)
  
• Magical Personage? Not sure.

Okay, this is not, technically a brand new holiday, since, technically, Arbor Day and Tu Bishvat already exist. But from what I can tell, after a quick double-check on the Web, these days both seem to focus on trees as planted and cultivated and harvested by humans, and this would be for all plants, both wild and domestic (though it falls around the same time as Tu Bishvat).

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• Name: Pluto Day
  
• Time: 14 July
  
• Purpose: To celebrate the New Horizon’s closest Fly-by with the Dwarf Planet Pluto, and, by extension, all the strange and wonderful things in our solar system, including all the planets, moons, and asteroids, the sun, and comets.
  
• Reasoning behind the date: The anniversary of the space probe New Horizon’s closest fly-by with the dwarf planet, on 14 July, 2015
  
• Special Foods: cakes and cookies decorated to look like planets, or with galaxy designs
  
• Appropriate gifts: binoculars, solar eclipse glasses, tickets to a local planetarium show, or a sci-fi movie.
  
• Special Greeting: Broad Horizons, and/or: Keep looking up!

Comments

[readera]

I would love some more color during winter too. :)

[capri0mni]

I mean, when I was in college, the whole romantic angle of Valentine's Day struck me as ridiculous.

But I did love seeing all the bouquets of flowers that showed up in the campus mail room, and all the kind-hearted souls who made it a point to hand out carnations to anyone who didn't have a sweetheart to give them a flower.

We have lots of color at the start of winter (in the Northern Hemisphere), thanks to Christmas. But by the end of January and July (depending where you are), the "Winter Wonderland" aspect has long been replaced by grey slush...

You know, as I was first writing that up, I was making up "Vernalia" on the fly. But the more I think about it, the more I think it should be a real holiday. ...Especially with the threat of Global Warming turning catastrophic, and the way we'll need plants to save us.

...But I'd be careful about mentioning that aspect, depending on who I promoting the holiday to.

Vernalia

[jesse_the_k]

...is brilliant.

It fills a need.

It would be an excellent teaching holiday for school kids.

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My thoughts on Pluto Day are captured in this elegant icon.

Re: Vernalia

[capri0mni]

Thank you (re: Vernalia)!

It would be an excellent teaching holiday for school kids

Perhaps. But pedantry is to celebrations what thin gruel is to supper... I was having more fun imagining all the ways you could dress up for the holiday...

[readera]

I feel like we don't have enough nature or plant-based holidays or at least we don't celebrate the ones we have... I can't remember the last time I heard about arbor day celebration locally.

[capri0mni]

Exactly! That was exactly my thought!

The problem I have with 99.999999% of the holidays we celebrate now is that they are either religious (which exclude people who don't believe in that faith), or nationalistic (which means you end up either celebrating--or glossing over--things like war, and racism)*

So I was just daydreaming about how I'd fill out a calendar so that the holidays are comfortably spaced and actually celebrate things that I actually feel happy to be celebrating. ...I think that's why the idea of Wolfenoot got so popular so quickly -- it's about being nice to dogs, even if you don't have a dog.

*Especially here in the States... :-/

[readera]

That is a problem.