I thought long and hard about what kind of New Years resolution I should make this year. Should I travel more, try and see more of this amazing planet? I love to go and see new places; basically the entire world is on my to do list, but the financial and logistical complications of going anywhere can be a nightmare. A much less enticing, but considerably more sensible option would be to try and get rid of some of my debt. But I still want to have some disposable income to dispose of as and when I please. Should I try and quit smoking, even though, in all honesty, I don’t really want to? I have probably more than my fair share of small personal life goals, but I would rather work towards them at my own pace, and not commit to achieving them with a grandiose statement made on the first day of the New Year. Then when I inevitably fail to follow through on the big accomplishment I was drunkenly telling all my friends about at that New Years Eve party, everyone will know, because I chose to put it out there in the public forum. The vast majority of resolutions people make on the January 1, 2013, will fail. Some of them will fail even though the resolution maker really believed that this time, they would be able to achieve their goals. Many will have been half-hearted, and doomed from the outset. Case in point: that friend (we all have one) who has been 'quitting' smoking for years but still smokes every day. At the risk of sounding trite I believe that trying to give up a bad habit will never work if it's something you feel like you should do because of external pressure and changing societal norms, rather than something that you actually want to do for yourself. People set different timescales for their resolutions too, from things to achieve in a week to things they want to have achieved by the end of the year. Long term resolutions also often fail to take into account the fact that what someone wants from life can change a hell of a lot over the course of a year. In short, only a very select few resolutions will be satisfactorily achieved in the way the resolution maker originally envisaged, and all others will have been unsuccessful, at best. So the question is not only what kind of resolution do I want to make, it is also what do I think I am capable of following through on, for a little while at least?
I’m 25, in work and in a happy stable relationship, and at that point in life where the older generation just will not stop asking me about when I’m going to get married, when (and where, which is a big question mark at the moment) I’m going to settle down and have kids, etc etc ad infinitum. It is starting to drive me round the bend. I don’t want to grow up just yet. I don’t want to get pregnant and have my body invaded by a tiny alien creature that lives inside me for 9 month stealing my nutrients, gruesomely fights it’s way out and then rules my life for the next eighteen years. I am so not ready for that. One day, yes, but not today, or in fact any time soon. I like being a little bit selfish and I’m quite happy with my life as it is right now, thank you very much. I have an awesome boyfriend, a really lovely boss, and an amazing bunch of family and friends. So, with all this taken into consideration, and with a need to prove to myself (an avid reader) that 4 years after finishing my degree I’m still capable of writing in legible sentences, I decided why not do something a bit childish and silly that I would also enjoy? Thus, I resolved to try and celebrate as many different holidays as possible, no matter how big or small, over the course of 2013, and blog about them here. I’m going to try and do as many as I can, with a set minimum of one a week, which I think (hope?) is an achievable goal. I like trying new things, I'm the kind of person who tends to avoid buying the same thing twice in restaurant, so this blog should also help to encourage me to expand my horizons, and I would imagine I'll learn a fair bit too :)
The idea of celebrating as many ridiculous holidays as I could in one year came to me on October 30th, which also happens to be National Text Your Ex Day, a day of celebration that kicked up quite a kerfuffle across social networking sites. Teenagers (and a few older people who should really have known better) across the world were outraged that twitter/facebook was encouraging them to get them back in touch with that ex they only dated for like 2 weeks and DIDN’T EVEN CARE ABOUT ANYWAY. Suffice to say, a large proportion of them DID text their exes (predominantly with a choice snippet of sarcastic abuse) before screenshotting the text, and sometimes the reply, and putting them up on (insert chosen social network here). Way to embarrass yourself in a public forum guys. A few day later I stumbled across a mental floss article which got me thinking more about the whole thing. Inspiration struck, and a few links later I had found a veritable encyclopaedia of holidays, from those celebrated around the world to tiny silly ones that had somehow garnered some semblance of legitimacy. Many National holidays are aimed at America, and other celebrations may be relevant to places that are not in the UK where live, but I'll try to give them a go too :) Using this as a reference for ideas, and with the rest of the internet at my disposal for research and anything else I might possibly need, I’m pretty much good to go. So, without further ado, let’s get cracking.
Welcome to my year of celebrations!
