MDBCs 26 Mar 2024

March 26 is Make Up Your Own Holiday Day. It is a day to think up of a thing, person, animal, phrase, or food and create a holiday to celebrate it.

The unofficial holiday honors all made-up holidays past, present, and future and encourages people to come up with creative, quirky, offbeat, important, and significant things to celebrate, observe, and commemorate.

The holiday is also known as National Make up Your Own Holiday Day in the United States.

Special Days

A holiday is a special day during the year, when normal, day-to-day activities such as going to school or work or opening up businesses are temporarily interrupted. On these days, other activities such as visiting places of worship, preparing special meals, and decorating homes and places of businesses are encouraged.

Unofficial and Official

Holidays can be official or unofficial. Official holidays usually mean that they are sanctioned by the government. Everyone who observes the holiday usually gets the day off from work. Official holidays can be religious, like Christmas, Diwali, Yom Kippur, or Eid al-Fitr; or they can be national, like the country's independence or constitution day. Other official holidays, like New Year's Day or Labor Day, are secular holidays and can be celebrated by people of all religious faiths.

Fun and Serious Holidays

Unofficial holidays, on the other hand, are not sanctioned by the government. This means that people usually do not get a day off, nor do businesses or government offices close to celebrate or observe the holiday. Unofficial holidays can include national and global awareness holidays such as UN days, and fun holidays that celebrate trivial, unimportant, and fun things like food, movies, books, and television series.

How to Celebrate?

Make up your own holiday, of course! Create a holiday, spread the word and celebrate it when the day comes.
If you want to make it official, you may have to talk to your local representative - only an official act of the legislature or government can make a holiday a national day.

Did You Know...

...that the holiday comes from the Old English word haligdæg, meaning holy day?

***

"Daddy," said my 11-year-old daughter, "I think I want to join the Army."

"Baby," I answered, "I think the Air Force would be a better option for you."

"But I don't want to be a pilot."

"You don't have to be a pilot," I told her. "There are other jobs in the Air Force."

Her answer: "I don't want to be a flight attendant either."

***

Think it's easy being a tour guide? VisitBritain, a travel bureau, has compiled these tourist questions.

"Is Wales closed during the winter?"

"Why did they build Windsor Castle on the flight path of Heathrow?"

"Who feeds the Loch Ness monster?"

"Are there any Sheena Easton museums in Glasgow?"

***

10 Quotes About Springtime

"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party'""
--Robin Williams

"The weather here is gorgeous. It's mild and feels like it's in the eighties. The hot dog vendors got confused because of the weather and thought it was spring, so they accidentally changed the hot dog water in their carts."
--David Letterman

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."
--Margaret Atwood

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."
-- Josh Billings

"Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

"Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes."
-- Clare Ansberry

"The earth laughs in flowers."
-- e e cummings

"At my age flowers scare me."
-- George Burns

"If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers."
-- Doug Larsen

"A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin."
-- H. L Mencken

***

When I arrived at school for my daughter's parent-teacher conference, the teacher seemed a bit flustered, especially when she started telling me that my little girl didn't always pay attention in class and was sometimes a little flighty.

"For example, she'll do the wrong page in the workbook," the teacher explained, "and I've even found her sitting at the wrong desk."

"I don't understand," I replied defensively. "Where could she have gotten that?"

The teacher went on to reassure me that my daughter was still doing fine in school and was sweet and likable. Finally, after a pause, she added, "By the way, Mrs. Gulbrandsen, our appointment was tomorrow."