What is "The Holiday Month"?

The Holiday Month is an attempt to celebrate a calendar years worth of holidays during the month of January, 2012.

When the holiday takes place on a specific day (i.e. St. Patrick's Day always takes place on March 17th), then it will be celebrated on January 17th. When a holiday takes place on a rotating day (i.e. Thanksgiving takes place on the fourth Thursday of November), then it will be celebrated on the corresponding day in January.

Concessions had to be made for holidays corresponding with religious calendars . These holidays, such as Easter and Purim, will be celebrated on the dates that they are taking place in 2012. Mardi Gras, the celebration that marks the beginning of the season of Lent, is being celebrated on the Tuesday before Easter, as this would then represent the beginning and end of that religious celebration.

The holidays celebrated during this month are in NO WAY all of the holidays celebrated throughout the year. Every effort was made to create a list that would cover major religious beliefs, as well as fun and interesting holidays that everyone might not celebrate.

Happy Holidays!

Monday, January 16, 2012

January 16th - Martin Luther King Jr. Day


Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrates the life of one of the most important figures of the Civil Rights Movement.  Dr. King was born on January 15th, 1929, and the holiday that bears his name is celebrated on the third Monday of January.  It is unique to the Holiday Month project as it is one of the three holidays that takes place in January, so I’m actually celebrating it on the correct day.

I didn’t quite know how to celebrate the holiday.  I am unfortunately away from home today, or I could have celebrated at the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, NC.  However, because I'm driving back from New Orleans today, I will be able to stop by the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL.  Pictures to follow once I arrive there! (Sadly, the memorial was closed by the time I made it there...)

As with all of the holidays that I’m celebrating this month, I had to do a little research to figure out what I should do in order to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  What I found was shocking to me, and said a lot about how we still have a long way to go in order to become the world that Dr. King envisioned.

The holiday was only just ratified by all states in 2000.  The last state to ratify, South Carolina, allowed their state employees to celebrate either Martin Luther King Jr. Day, or one of three Confederate holidays.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I find it disturbing that this was sanctioned by a state’s government.  A redneck with a Confederate flag tattoo is one thing.  A government celebrating a time of brutality, slavery, and sedition is something else entirely. Now, I know that I’m a “northerner” and because I didn’t grow up in the South, I don’t completely understand the culture.  I just thought that in this day and age (we are, after all, living in the future), we would have all moved beyond this.

I believe that Martin Luther King Jr. would have thought so as well, and I feel disappointed that we haven’t yet fulfilled his dream.  But maybe feeling this way is what today is all about.  Maybe today is about reflecting on the society that we live in, and the society that we could create for our future.  And by doing so, maybe we will all one day reach the promised land.
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