Holi

Holi festival was originally a Hindu festival linked with the birthday celebrations of Lord Chaitanya. Now it is celebrated as a Universal festival in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, other countries where the concentration of Hindu populations are huge in numbers. People from all religions participate in this festival of happiness, friendship, tolerance and acceptance between other religions, languages and creeds. Holi also celebrates the transformation from winter to summer season.

Holi is celebrated with joyful parties where everybody sprinkles colored powder on each other. The idea is to cover everybody in color so no matter your color, sex, religion...everybody is the same. 

I already try at every opportunity to teach Eira about being tolerate and accepting. We talked about all the ways people are different. The best part of the day was the Holi powder throwing inspired paint fight! I think there is something about covering your mother is messy paint. 

 

Mardi Gras (fat tuesday)

This was a fun holiday! Yesterday the only thing I really knew about Mardi Gras was it was a huge parade/partying day in New Orleans where people took off their shirts for beads. It's original purpose was actually party driven. Mardi Gras is celebrated the day before Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is French for fat Tuesday because people celebrated and used up the last of their eggs, butter, milk and rich foods before fasting for the next 46 days during Lent.

We started the day with a mock king cake (cinnamon rolls baked into a circle with colored icing). Traditionally a plastic baby is baked into the cake, we used a pin. Eiralynn got it in her piece of cake and was the king (or queen in her case) for the day.

For dinner we had New Orleans style jambalaya with shrimp (which Eira LOVED, who knew?) in our kitchen decorated in the traditional Mardi Gras colors green (for faith), gold (for power) and purple (for justice), beads, masks and horns.

Presidents Day!

Presidents Day is celebrated on the third Monday of February. Since the day falls between the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, most people take the opportunity to honor both presidents. Others celebrate all the presidents today. For simplicity's sake I'll just concentrate on Washington and Lincoln and teach Eira a little about being a president and how it works.

St. Valentines Day!

Ok, so you've all celebrated it since you were in Kindergarten. The little party after lunch where they handed out cookies covered in red sprinkles and boxes of chalk flavored Be Mine! and Love Ya conversation hearts then everyone passes out valentines. The characters featured depend on when you grew up, but they may have feature Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles declaring you "totally rad", Pokemon cards "glad I caught YOU valentine!" or maybe some sweet hand made ones with terrible word play.

But do you know who St. Valentine was? Surprise! It's not a single St. we celebrate on February 14th. St. Valentines day mixes bits of Christian and Roman tradition. According to the Catholic church there are three different martyrs named Valentine. In the third century in Rome marriage was outlawed because the Emperor decided single men made better soldiers than married ones. Valentine defied the Emperor and wed couples in secret. He was put to death when the Emperor found out. How romantic.

So why February 14th? And why all the mushy gushy love and valentines gifts? Christians decided to place St. Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to "Christianize" the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Sneaky Christians. During the Middle Ages in France and England they believed February 14 was the beginning of birds' mating season bringing out the idea that the middle of Valentine's Day should be a day for romance.

Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine's didn't begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.

We had so much fun today. Eira-lynn got her Valentine gifts when she got up. This afternoon we made cupcakes for our "dinner party". For dinner I made heart shaped berry pancakes, eggs and fried potatos. We decorated the table with valentines day balloons, valentines day cups, the cupcakes and flowers. Even some sparkling grape juice to be extra special.

Groundhogs Day/Candlemas/Imbolc

    Today is 3 for 1! Four if you count my brother's birthday (Happy Birthday Kyle!).

    This morning Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog in PA) did indeed see his shadow. As legend goes, he gets scared and runs back in his hole to hibernate through the next six weeks, therefore predicting six more weeks of winter weather! This was fun for Eira-lynn. We got http://www.amazon.com/Groundhog-Day-Book-Facts-Fun/dp/0807530662/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328198996&sr=1-5 from the library and read all about Groundhogs Day. What's a groundhogs favorite food? Burrow-itos! hahaha.

   Candlemas is a Christan holiday when candles are blessed and lit representing the idea Jesus is the light of the world. I wasn't about to take some candles to my local church to have them blessed, but we did eat lunch by candle light and talked about the metaphoric light inside (being kind, empathetic, etc). This confused Eira-lynn for a while, but I think she understands now.

   Imbolc is a celtic/pagan holiday celebrating the coming of spring. In Celtic times in Ireland, Imbolc was a Pagan holiday celebrating Brigid, the goddess of all things of high dimensions, like mountains and high rising fire and of activities and states, such as wisdom, excellence, perfection and high intelligence. Since the spring is when animals are born and sheep begin producing milk for their young traditional Imbolc meals include plenty of dairy. We had grilled cheese sandwiches and green peas (which always seem like such a spring vegetable to me) for lunch.

    

Australia Day

G'day mate! The Australian accent is my second favorite accent ever (next to an Irish one). This is a pretty laid back and fun holiday to celebrate. People in Australia celebrate the day with parties, parades, concerts and BBQ's.

Australia is the smallest continent but the 6th largest country (about the same size as the US). Australia day celebrates the day (in 1788) the first fleet under Captain Arthur Phillip landed at Sydney, establishing the Colony of New South Wales (official on Feb. 7,1788 ).

Eira-lynn and I made an Australian flag out of construction paper and sang the national anthem;

Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free,
We've golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare,
In history's page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross
We'll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share:
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.

Eira-lynn got a kick out of the different words they use. We loaded up the "boot" of the car for our trip to NC (the trunk) we had morning (and afternoon) tea with "biscuits" (cookies). We watched Bindi Irwin on you tube to hear the Australian accent and I also taught her how they say bloody (meaning very, as in bloody well done, or bloody hungry). That was probably a mistake. She won't stop saying it.

I actually looked up where to buy kangaroo meat the other day to make something for dinner tonight, but they don't sell it around here (big surprise) and the cheapest I could find it online was $42 including shipping. Apparently, Australians don't even usually eat kangaroo so I looked around for something else. Since Australia is surrounded by water (it's basically a big island) they eat a lot of seafood, and have a ton of fish and chips (french fries) restaurants, so we went with that.

I really would like to visit some day.

Chinese New Year

    新年快乐! Xīnnián kuàilè! Happy New Year! Our new year is kind of boring. You sit around all night, maybe go to a party, maybe sit at home counting down till midnight. Shout happy new year and go to bed. But in China! Their new year celebration lasts for 2 weeks! It's pretty much the same idea of what your used to. It's the beginning of the Chinese calendar year. One big difference is the animals. One of 12 specific animals represents each year, this year being the year of the dragon. Luck plays a big role in the Chinese new year. They eat certain foods for good luck, decorate with the color red for good luck, have huge parades and celebrations with fireworks to scare away the evil spirits and bring good luck.

     Eira-lynn and I made some pretty cute paper lanterns to hang up. And of course we ordered chinese food for dinner (homemade fortune cookies too! So easy!) and ate picnic style on the living room floor dressed in red. The day before the lantern festival (feb. 6, the last day of the new year celebration) there is a big Chinese new year celebration here in Knoxville. We're so excited to go to that also.