Obscure Holidays

[Lothae]

With Thanksgiving today, and Christmas just around the corner, I was wondering if any escapists celebrate some holidays that the rest of us may never have heard of, or at least not know a lot about .

Personally I'm looking forward to December 5th and 6th, when, being Austrian, my family will celebrate St.Nicholas' day with a small gift giving, kind of a prelude to Christmas. If I were still in Austria or Switzerland there'd probably be larger scale celebrations in the streets - I vaguely recall one of the Krampusse waving scarily at me (I was 5 at the time >.>).

What holidays do you guys celebrate that other people haven't really heard of?

 

[oliveira8]

All Portuguese national holidays?(or most of them)

I don't know what exactly is the thread about?

 

[Lothae]

Do you celebrate any non-mainstream holidays, in essence. Mainstream being say, Christmas/Hanukkah, Easter, Halloween, New Years, and whatever National Independence day your country has (for instance, 4th of July in the US) (in no particular order there). You know, the ones everyone's heard of .

 

[Eleuthera]

Personally I'm looking forward to December 5th and 6th, when, being Austrian, my family will celebrate St.Nicholas' day with a small gift giving, kind of a prelude to Christmas.

Being Dutch, we hve this as well, it isn't so much a prelude to Christmas as a replacement though. Most families (especially those with small children) have gift giving on "Sinterklaas" (St. Nicholas eve, december 5th) instead of on Christmas.

 

[Raven's Nest]

It's the official international year of astronomy this year... Who the fuck celebrates it, I don't have a clue...

Well... Astronomers probably, but that's besides the point. When's the next one, does anbody even know?

For actual celebrations, I had fun round my Indian friends house for Diwali a few weeks ago.

 

[Brickcups]

11/11 Is pepero(aka pocky for those of you not in the know) day in Korea,where you exchange pocky sticks with people you're interested in(or your significant other) as a romantic gesture. Japan has also adopted this holiday although it has yet to grow to the levels it has in korea.

It isn't quite as dramatic as Armistice/Veteran's Day which is on the same day, but I think it's a nice tradition =].

 

[DemonicVixen]

National naked day.

Its not celebrated by most because I just made it up ^^

It's great fun.

Yeah can i join in with that?

 

[Lothae]

WTF are 'Labor Day' '4th of July' and 'Thanksgiving'? Or is this another American assuming that everyone gives a shit about their stupid holidays?

Heh, sorry my friend, I'm actually Austrian but I've been rather Americanized by attending a bunch of international schools. Will correct that :<.

 

[NimbleJack3]

I'm not sure how widely spread Winter-Een-Mas is, but I celebrate it.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

MY birthday... also known to alot of people who are related to me as the first day of trying to keep up with my awesome...

no really... I'm a total and admitted loser for the most part... gladly roughly %30 of the loserism is situational and out of my control entirely... the rest is a combination of having no life goal and being kinda lazy... but my birthday i celebrate by getting roaring drunk and watching shit on my PC online and sometimes trying to play counterstrike or some sorta FPS while smashed... which never works in my favour as i tend to shoot randomly and not be able to hit the broad side of a barn... still my first birthday being on a friday the 13th rocks... and every time it lands on a friday it's kinda celebrated by superstitious people so i aint alone there!


and other than that I only celebrate fictional or nonexistant holidays made up by me, others i just kinda go along with for food.

like one of my favourite made up holidays i celebrate is, Mid Septembral Wednesday's eve, where i drink till i fall out of my chair and phone random people and slur drunkenly at them until they hang up... and try to time it... drinking a shot every time I last over 10 seconds before being hung up on...

of course this might make me sound like a drunk loner... but seriously people 90% of the time I'm a sober loner... so it aint that bad...

 

[Lothae]

*snip*

*snip*

No worries. Do you have some kind of carnival celebrated in Austria in the winter/spring? I was skiing there one time and on one particular day there was a carnival and everyone went skiing dressed up in funny costumes or naked and then we all got drunk afterwards and had a big party... Ring a bell?

Doesn't really, you may have simply been at a more local celebration like Snowbombing (first thing I got upon googling "winter carnival Austria" >.>) or the like. As far as I know there isn't any national holiday of that sort.

 

[Lothae]

*snip*

Bastard ski instructer lied to us!

As far as I know, remember ;3
I have never actually lived in Austria for longer than a week, never lived in Europe apart from living in Switzerland for the first 5 years of my life. I don't know about any national festival during the winter however. Apart from the Christmas markets, but that's Christmas related .