Category: Holidays

Pumpkin Carving and Pumpkin Carving Patterns for Halloween, worthy of a click just for the home page photo.

It’s Talk Like A Pirate Day.

I’m sure me timbers will be shivering all day.

… until Talk Like A Pirate Day – September 19.

The original Bastille Day was on this date in 1789 when “the people of Paris rose up and decided to march on the Bastille, a state prison that symbolized the absolutism and arbitrariness of the Ancien Regime.”

“For all citizens of France, the storming of the Bastille symbolizes, liberty, democracy and the struggle against all forms of oppression.”

Embassy of France

Number of places nationwide with “liberty” in their name. The most populous one is Liberty, Mo. (27,982). Iowa, with four, has more of these places than any other state: Libertyville, New Liberty, North Liberty and West Liberty.

Eleven places have “independence” in their name. The most populous of these is Independence, Mo., with 112,079 residents.

Five places adopted the name “freedom.” Freedom, Calif., with 6,000 residents, has the largest population among these.

There is one place named “patriot” — Patriot, Ind., with a population of 196.

And what could be more fitting than spending the Fourth of July in a place called “America”? There are five such places in the country, with the most populous being American Fork, Utah, population 22,876.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Summer arrived at 46 minutes after midnight Tuesday, Mountain Daylight Time.

What this means astronomically speaking is that at 06:46 Universal Time today (June 21) the northern hemisphere of the earth was tilted 23.4° toward the sun; the southern hemisphere was tilted 23.4° away.

This is best explained with an orange and a flashlight.

Today is Father’s Day, a holiday in this country that goes back to a Sunday morning in May of 1909, when a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd was sitting in church in Spokane, Washington, listening to a Mother’s Day sermon. She thought of her father who had raised her and her siblings after her mother died in childbirth, and she thought that fathers should get recognition too.

So she asked the minister of the church if he would deliver a sermon honoring fathers on her father’s birthday, which was coming up in June, and the minister did. And the tradition of Father’s Day caught on, though rather slowly. Mother’s Day became an official holiday in 1914; Father’s Day, not until 1972.

Mother’s Day is still the busiest day of the year for florists, restaurants and long distance phone companies. Father’s Day is the day on which the most collect phone calls are made.

The Writer’s Almanac

isn’t until Monday (coinciding this year with May 30, the date on which the holiday was long celebrated), but NewMexiKen thought some history of the day might be in order. This from the Library of Congress:

In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a memorial day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

The first national celebration of the holiday took place May 30, 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery, where both Confederate and Union soldiers were buried. Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century it was designated as Memorial Day. In many American towns, the day is celebrated with a parade. …

In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended it to honor all soldiers who died in American wars. A few states continue to celebrate Memorial Day on May 30.

Today, national observance of the holiday still takes place at Arlington National Cemetery with the placing of a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the decoration of each grave with a small American flag.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia — fear of Friday the 13th

So where does it come from — the fear of 13? Its origins can be traced to Norse mythology and a dinner party at Valhalla, home of the god Odin, where Odin and 11 of his closest god-friends were gathered one night to party. Everyone was having fun, but then Loki, the dastardly god of evil and turmoil, showed up uninvited, making it a crowd of 13. The beloved god Balder tried to boot Loki out of the house, the legend goes, and in the scuffle that followed he suffered a deathblow from a spear of mistletoe.

From that mythological start, the number 13 has plowed a path of devastation through history. There were 13 people at Christ’s Last Supper, including the double-crossing Judas Iscariot. The ill-fated Apollo 13 lunar mission left the launching pad at 13:13 hours and was aborted on April 13. Friday hasn’t been much kinder to us. Friday was execution day in ancient Rome — Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Put it all together, and Friday the 13th spells trouble for triskaidekaphobics. It’s a testament to the phobia’s prevalence that Hollywood was able to parlay our fear into a hugely successful series of slasher movies starring a hockey-masked guy named Jason.

But triskaidekaphobia isn’t an exclusively American affliction. Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery. There is a hush-hush organization in France whose exclusive purpose is to provide last-minute guests for dinner parties, so that no party host ever has to suffer the curse of entertaining 13 guests.

Excerpted from Jon Bowen, writing at Slate.

About.com has five pages of background on the superstition.

And Urban Legends has a lengthy page.

Happy Mother’s Day.

NewMexiKen posted entries on a number of interesting items a year ago today: on Thomas Pynchon — it’s his birthday, he’s 68 this year; an excerpt from Harry Truman’s diary – Truman was born on this date in 1884; on the magnificent Blues singer Robert Johnson, born on this date in 1911; lyrics from Garden Party — Rick Nelson was born on this date in 1940; and more, including this:

The very first Coca-Cola was sold at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta on this date in 1886. Dr. John S. Pemberton created the formula, which until 1905 had extracts of cocaine, as well as caffeine-rich kola nut. Bookkeeper Frank Robinson coined the name and it’s his handwriting we know from the trademark.

And I told the story of the day Jill arrived.

Which only makes me think that it’s too bad Jill can’t remember that day better herself. It would be great fun to read the telling of that silly story (with its happy ending) when told by as humorous and stylistic a writer as Jill. Happy Birthday Jill.

According to The Writer’s Almanac “Americans will eat 54 million avocados today, most of them in the form of guacamole.”

Here’s a whole page of Avocado Fruit Facts should you find yourself wanting in that knowledge.

The holiday of Cinco De Mayo, The 5th Of May, commemorates the victory of the Mexicans over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. It is primarily a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican state capital city of Puebla and throughout the state of Puebla, with some recognition in other parts of the Mexico, and especially in U.S. cities with a significant Mexican population. It is not, as many people think, Mexico’s Independence Day, which is actually September 16.

MexOnline.com

In case you missed it.

Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes Of All Time

NewMexiKen is wearing the green today to honor my Irish children and grandchildren.

Lead your kids on a fun, faith-filled Easter egg hunt this year—one that will teach them about Jesus’ death and resurrection! Each egg carton is filled with a dozen colorful plastic eggs. Pop them open and find miniature symbols of the Easter story inside. An easy-to-understand booklet features Bible stories explaining the significance of each object. Ages 5 and up.

Resurrection Eggs

Link via Jesus’ General

By historian C. L. Arbelbide in the quarterly publication of the National Archives, Prologue, an article on the history of the Washington’s Birthday holiday. The article corrects some of the Internet folklore about the holiday (including that posted here last year). A few excerpts:

In the late 1870s, Senator Steven Wallace Dorsey (R-Arkansas) proposed the unprecedented idea of adding “citizen” Washington’s birth date, February 22, to the four existing bank holidays previously approved in 1870.

Originally federal worker absenteeism had forced Congress to take a cue from surrounding states and formally declare New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day as federal holidays in the District of Columbia.

The idea of adding Washington’s Birthday to the federal holiday list simply made official an unofficial celebration in existence long before Washington’s death. A popular proposal, the holiday bill required little debate. Signed into law January 31, 1879, by President Rutherford B. Hayes, the law was implemented in 1880 and applied only to District federal workers. In 1885 the holiday was extended to federal workers in the thirty-eight states.

*****

Although storm clouds were gathering around the idea of shifting Veterans Day from one month to another, it was the proposal to shift the Washington’s Birthday federal holiday from February 22 to the third Monday in February that caused both a congressional and public outcry. That Washington’s identity would be lost forced McClory to insist, “We are not changing George Washington’s birthday” and further note, “We would make George Washington’s Birthday more meaningful to many more people by having it observed on a Monday.”

Opponents were not convinced. It had been McClory—a representative from “the land of Lincoln”—who had attempted in committee to rename “Washington’s Birthday” as “President’s Day.” The bill stalled. The Wall Street Journal reported on March 27 [1968]: “To win more support, Mr. McClory and his allies dropped the earlier goal of renaming Washington’s Birthday [as] Presidents’ Day, [which] mollified some Virginia lawmakers. He also agreed to sweeten the package by including Columbus Day as a Federal holiday, a goal sought for years by Italian-American groups.”

*****

Had the name of the holiday been changed to Presidents’ Day, McClory would have gained instant federal holiday recognition for Illinois native son Abraham Lincoln. With the name change no longer a possibility, McClory positioned the federal holiday on the third Monday in February—a date closer to Lincoln’s February 12 birth date, knowing the dual presidential birthday spotlight could be shared by Lincoln.

McClory went so far as to suggest a direct link between the February 22 birth date and the third Monday existed: “Indeed, his [Washington’s] birthday will be celebrated frequently on February 22, which in many cases will be the third Monday in February. It will also be celebrated on February 23, just as it is at the present time when February 22 falls on the Sunday preceding.”

Virginia representatives Richard Harding Poff and William Lloyd Scott—believing that removing the direct date removed the heritage the date represented—countered the inaccurate information. Poff declared, “Now what that really means is never again will the birthday of the Father of our Country be observed on February 22 because the third Monday will always fall between the 15th of February and the 21st of February.” Poff proposed an amendment to retain the February 22 date. …

Knowing that future generations were caretakers of the past, Dan Heflin Kuykendall (R-Tennessee) cut to the heart of the matter. “If we do this, 10 years from now our schoolchildren will not know or care when George Washington was born. They will know that in the middle of February they will have a 3-day weekend for some reason. This will come.”

*****

Then there was the response by state governments. While Congress could create a uniform federal holiday law, there would not be a uniform holiday title agreement among the states. While a majority of states with individual holidays honoring Washington and Lincoln shifted their state recognition date of Washington’s Birthday to correspond to the third Monday in February, a few states chose not to retain the federal holiday title, including Texas, which by 1971 renamed their state holiday “President’s Day.”

Crossing state borders on Washington’s Birthday could lead to holiday title confusion. Then came the power of advertising.

For advertisers, the Monday holiday change was the goose that laid the golden “promotional” egg. Using Labor Day marketing as a guide, three-day weekend sales were expanded to include the new Monday holidays. Once the “Uniform Monday Holiday Law” was implemented, it took just under a decade to build a head of national promotional sales steam.

Local advertisers morphed both “Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday” and “George Washington’s Birthday” into the sales sound bite “President’s Day,” expanding the traditional three-day sales to begin before Lincoln’s birth date and end after Washington’s February 22 birth.

This holiday is often referred to as President’s Day but for the federal government the legal holiday name is Washington’s Birthday.

This from The History Channel:

According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first ‘valentine’ greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl — who may have been his jailor’s daughter — who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed ‘From your Valentine,’ an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It’s no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France.

The Catholic Roots of Valentine’s Day:

A quick quiz: St. Valentine was:

a) a priest in the Roman Empire who helped persecuted Christians during the reign of Claudius II, was thrown in jail and later beheaded on Feb. 14.

b) a Catholic bishop of Terni who was beheaded, also during the reign of Claudius II.

c) someone who secretly married couples when marriage was forbidden, or suffered in Africa, or wrote letters to his jailer’s daughter, and was probably beheaded.

d) all, some, or possibly none of the above.

If you guessed d), give yourself a box of chocolates. Although the mid-February holiday celebrating love and lovers remains wildly popular, the confusion over its origins led the Catholic Church, in 1969, to drop St. Valentine’s Day from the Roman calendar of official, worldwide Catholic feasts.

There’s more.

Today is Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras). Also known as Shrove Tuesday (England) or Carnival.

St. Blaise was, so far as is known, a bishop in Armenia who was martyred in the early fourth century. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Blaise (or Blasius)

was taken prisoner at the command of the governor, Agricolaus. The hunters of the governor found him [Blaise] in the wilderness in a cave to which he had retired and while in prison he performed a wonderful cure of a boy who had a fishbone in his throat and who was in danger of choking to death. After suffering various forms of torture St. Blasius was beheaded….In many places on the day of his feast the blessing of St. Blasius is given: two candles are consecrated, generally by a prayer, these are then held in a crossed position by a priest over the heads of the faithful or the people are touched on the throat with them. In other places oil is consecrated in which the wick of a small candle is dipped and the throats of those present are touched with the wick. At the same time the following blessing is given: “Per intercessionem S. Blasii liberet te Deus a malo gutteris et a quovis alio malo” (May God at the intercession of St. Blasius preserve you from throat troubles and every other evil).

While having his throat blessed each year as a kid, NewMexiKen often wondered why Blaise — if he was the protector of throats — didn’t save his own throat from the ax.