No holiday is too small

Keep the holiday feeling going all year long

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that no holiday is too small or too
random to celebrate. If you are enjoying the holiday season now,

(00:26):
you might think about how to carry that festive feeling
into some less festive times of the year. So. I
know some folks are a bit ba humbug about the holidays,
but a lot of people like them for a very
simple reason. It's nice to have an excuse to get
together with family and friends. Life has plenty of rough stuff,

(00:50):
so it is fun to be in a celebratory mood
during late November to early January. There are holidays left
and right for lots of different traditions, but many other
parts of the year don't have such obvious occasions. The
solution find very minor, silly or made up reasons to celebrate.

(01:15):
You don't really need a special occasion. You can create
a special occasion and make it a fun part of
your life. So, for instance, if you know you are
going to be feeling a little bit of a post
holiday let down, how about marking your calendar for January nineteenth.
Apparently that is National Popcorn Day. While I am quite

(01:39):
certain that this was created by people who make a
living selling popcorn, who cares celebrating it could still be fun.
For instance, you could mark the occasion, which happens to
be a Friday, with a popcorn and movie night, have
some neighbors over, and make lots of batches. You could
also decide to make an after work or after school

(02:01):
snack spread of lots of different flavors of popcorn. You
can order the flavors from a specialty store, or maybe
just buy several in a big grocery store in the
chip aisle, or make them yourself. I'm guessing you can
find recipes online for something caramel flavored, cinnamon flavored, chocolate drizzled,
paprika topped whatever. Or here's an idea, bring a tin

(02:26):
of popcorn to work and leave it in the break
room with a note that reads Happy National Popcorn Day.
Pack a baggy of popcorn in your kid's lunches with
a little note commemorating the occasion. Of course, National Popcorn
Day is just one example of what are literally thousands
of basically made up holidays. You could search around see

(02:49):
what others are celebrating. I know that the Wall Street
Journal's wine columnists have many times rallied people around in
open that bottle night, encourage people to actually drink that
wine that they had been saving for a special occasion,
which may or may not come. This Saturday could be
a special occasion. It is Saturday, after all, and you

(03:13):
can absolutely make up your own holidays. In January, my
family will be celebrating Gift Card Day, where we go
through and actually use whatever gift cards people have given us.
Why let the money sit on those retailers' balance sheets.
Given that there are so many options, you can be

(03:34):
strategic about figuring out which ones you're going to focus on.
For instance, maybe your family generally does something fun for
Valentine's Day, and then you also get together with family
for Passover, which starts April twenty second in this coming year.
This leaves a pretty big gap in the middle, So

(03:55):
you might come up with a fun reason to celebrate
something in mid March. Maybe you can create your own
mini cherry Bussom festival in honor of the blooming trees.
You get the idea. I know that the post holiday
doldrums will be settling in for a lot of people
and a little over a month. It happens. But you

(04:16):
don't need an official federal holiday to bring people together
or to do something festive. You can come up with
any reason. No holiday is too small. Life in general
is worth celebrating. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.

(04:47):
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,

(05:09):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.