Celebrate unusual upcoming holidays this week

By Crystal Harris | September 28, 2009

As the year winds down and we enter the last few months of 2009, a barrage of holidays is coming our way.  There’s Halloween, Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.  There are costumes, presents, celebrations to be had, and it all can be exhausting.  If all of this holiday happiness, fun and cheer takes your head for a spin, break away from the normal every year holidays and celebrate some unusual holidays this week:

September 28: National Good Neighbor Day

This isn’t just any made up holiday, it was actually created as a national holiday in the 1970’s by Becky Mattson from Lakeside, Montana who wanted to give a day to appreciate her good neighbors.  Join in on Becky’s spirit and do something nice for your neighbors today.

September 29: Confucius Day

This day is in honor of Confucius himself.  This celebratory day dates back over a thousand years, but there is no history as to why it became a holiday.  Maybe Confucius was so cool with his enlightening words of wisdom, people couldn’t help but give him his own holiday. As Confucius says, “The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.”

September 30: Mud Pack Day

Many see Mud Pack Day and think, “Awesome!  Lets get dirty,” but this day isn’t that kind of Mud Pack.  This holiday celebrates beauty and rejuvenation with a mud pack facial. Even though it isn’t technically a national holiday, taking a quick break in the day for facial couldn’t hurt. It’s a great excuse for a lady to pamper herself; men are welcome to enjoy as well.  Don’t worry; we won’t tell anyone you secretly enjoyed it.

October 1: World Vegetarian Day

This health-loving holiday was first celebrated in 1977, with the hopes that everyone would take a break from fast food and animal grilling to enjoy the fruits of the land; and veggies of course.  For those meat lovers, challenge yourself and make this whole day vegetarian style.  A day without meat, won’t hurt anything.

October 2: Name your car day and Custodial Worker Day

This day is popular enough to have two holidays.  Even though neither of these celebrations are official national holidays, they still can be fun and rewarding to celebrate.

Who doesn’t have a name for their car?  Mine is Jim.  A car has to be reliable, welcoming and a reflection of personality.  A car without a name is like a dog without a home.

I don’t even want to hear anyone say custodians don’t deserve a holiday.  If you ever walked into a public restroom at a school, mall, business, or any other high traffic area, then you know custodians should have a parade for the job they do.  Take the time and say thanks to the custodian in your life.  There may be an extra set of toilet seat covers in it for you.

October 3: International Frugal Fun Day, Techies Day, and Virus Appreciation Day.

In these are economic times, International Frugal Fun Day isn’t such a bad idea. Who says there isn’t any fun in being cheap?  Shel Horowitz, who wrote the book, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant’s Pocketbook. This book, created this day, helps penny pinchers celebrate wisely.  Be cheap, do fun for free.

Techies Day may be a day for so-called nerds, geeks, and dweebs but everyone knows we couldn’t live in this technologically advanced world without them.  When it comes to a crashed computer or hard drive malfunction, these guys are like superheroes. They need to be appreciated or else the next big malfunction could take a while to fix.

Who would want to create Virus Appreciation Day?  A hacker I suppose.  Whether it’s a human, animal, or computer virus, lets take the take to celebrating it by destroying the little suckers.  I believe Techies Day and Virus Appreciation Day are celebrated together for a purpose.

All these holidays may sound silly, lame, or just a plain long shot from the truth, but they’re still fun to enjoy when life gets boring.  Pick your favorite and go all out for the day.  Popular holidays shouldn’t get all the fun.