Hey there, Blog Buddies!

Being active in helping out your community is a great thing to do. Not only does volunteer work do wonders for a community but it makes you feel good too. That’s why Everything Summer Camp is more than happy to carry the message out to all of our Blog readers that today is International Volunteer Day.

In 1985, the United Nations declared December 5 as International Volunteer Day. International days of observance are intended to increase the awareness and understanding of the day’s focal point. Today provides a chance for volunteers—whether they’re working on an individual level or in a group organization capacity—to bring their volunteering contributions to light.

Marked by many non-government run organizations like Red Cross and scouts, International Volunteer Day is supported by all sorts of individuals and groups as well as volunteers of the United Nations.

Volunteerism plays a significant role in any community, culture, and religion. It helps to improve the world, the people who live in it, and you! What does volunteer work do for the volunteers? It brings them closer to their community and gives them a great sense of belonging. Playing a role in your community brings you and the community you live in together.

So what can you do to play a part in volunteer work that helps your community? Find out what other people are doing. December 5 almost always has some sort of rally, parade, or volunteer fair where you can find something to do for your community. There’s always something to do. From group clean ups to fundraising to workshops and giving blood, volunteer work is plentiful in everyone’s community.

To put a slight spin of JFK’s old—yet well-remembered words—ask not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for your community.

Hey, Shoppers!

It’s time, once again, to make stuffing and roast turkeys in our ovens! And you know what that means! Thanksgiving is here, of course. This year’s Thanksgiving holiday, however, is packing twice the punch that it has in the past because Black Friday is starting earlier and earlier every year. So early, it’s part of Thanksgiving. Tis the season to be shopping!

Black Friday got its start in Philadelphia during the early 60’s. It was called Black Friday because of the thick, disorderly traffic (of vehicles and pedestrians) that filled the streets. Black Friday started to catch on in other places and on a more national level by 1975. It’s shot up in the ranks of busiest shopping days throughout the years, but it’s really gotten crazy in the last few.

Five or six in the morning used to be pretty early for retailers to open their doors, but in 2011 this was taken to an extreme when a handful of stores opened at midnight for the first time. Black Friday has steadily been the busiest shopping day of the year. The crowded shopping day has only increased in popularity over the years. The shoppers are typically aggressive, ruthless, even violent!

How can you reap the benefits of amazing sales on Black Friday while still steering clear of unbelievably massive crowds? Try finding some good sales online. Everything Summer Camp is slashing their prices in response to Black Friday. Online shopping is a great alternative to ridiculously overgrown and even dangerous crowds.

Camp trunks, trunk accessories, and an endless list of summer camp supplies and camping gear make for great Christmas gifts. Shop around on the Everything Summer Camp Web site this Black Friday to find great deals on quality products and avoid all those crazy crowds!

Happy Thanksgiving, Blog Readers!

Thanksgiving is a national holiday that I’m sure all of you avidly celebrate, but few probably know what it’s actually about. Giving thanks, right? Well, sure—of course it is—but thanks for what? Turkey and the Macy’s Parade, right? Well, no…not exactly. See, taking a day to give thanks way back when used to be a much broader tradition.

I’m sure you all know about the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock and learned the ways of the Native Americans to celebrate in the harvest feast with them. What you probably don’t know is that thanksgiving days were already a tradition celebrated by the Pilgrims before they landed in the New World.

Days of thanksgiving were once held rather frequently throughout the year, actually. What was a European custom became an American custom for years to make a day of thanks. What were they thankful for? Anything. It could have been a crop that came in really well that year, the end of a drought, or simply making it through a harsh winter.

When the Pilgrims first came to the New World, their harvest feast with the Natives just became one more reason for being thankful. Thanksgiving Day would not become an annually celebrated national holiday until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it in 1863.

One name that we should all remember on Thanksgiving is Sarah Josepha Hale, an American writer and editor (as well as the writer of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”). For 20 years, Sarah campaigned for our national holiday that we all know and love. She was 75 by the time she finally convinced Lincoln by mail that this would be a good holiday to help unify the country after the Civil War.

Thanks to her, we celebrate with turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie (all her idea). The “first” Thanksgiving Day celebrated by the Pilgrims and Natives served a fairly different menu consisting of deer, various types of fowl (like turkey and duck), fish (like cod and bass), and flint corn. Like I said—thanks, Sarah!

From all of us at Everything Summer Camp, Happy Thanksgiving!

Shalom, Boys and Girls, and Happy Hanukkah!

Once again, it’s time to get out the dreidels and menorahs! Starting tomorrow night at sunset, the first night of Hanukkah begins! Eight days and nights follow to observe this traditional Hebrew holiday until nightfall on December 5. Because of the time of season it falls on, Hanukkah is sometimes considered a sort of Jewish Christmas, but what exactly is this celebration about? Let’s take a deeper look.

First of all, as opposed to Christmas (which is a steady Dec. 25), Hanukkah goes off of a lunisolar calendar which is based on the sun and the moon while the traditional Gregorian calendar only considers the sun and the time it takes the earth to move around it. Hanukkah consistently begins on the 25 of Kislev, a month of the Hebrew calendar.

The history of Hanukkah goes back to 165 B.C. when a Jewish rebel army known as the Maccabees defeated the Syrians and rededicated their holy temple in Jerusalem. The eight days of Hanukkah are about a seven-day miracle in which the Maccabees only had enough oil to light the temple’s eternal flame for a single day, yet the lamp kept on burning for eight!

Onto Hanukkah’s main tradition, the lighting of a distinctive, nine-branched candleholder which is often times referred to as a menorah (like in the second sentence of this post). Not everyone knows that this name is actually incorrect for the traditional nine-branched candelabrum. It’s actually called a Hanukkiah. A menorah, on the other hand, has only seven candleholders—like the lamp that was used in the ancient holy temple in Jerusalem.

Hanukkiahs have nine candleholders so that there’s a candle for every night of Hanukkah and then one more to light the others. If you celebrate Hanukkah, you now can educate your friends and family on the holiday you’re about to celebrate! Happy Hanukkah.

Bonjour, Blog Buddies!

(That’s French for “hello”). As you may have already known, World Hello Day is today. World Hello Day is a celebration that takes place all over the world in which everyone celebrates simply by greeting everyone they know with “Nyob Zoo” (if your Hmong), “Hei” (for Norwegians), “Hallo” (in Germany), and, of course, our American standard, “Hello.” If you spoke Japanese you would say, “こんにちは.”

How many different ways can someone say “hello”?

Well, that’s actually a pretty tricky question. It’s hard to know how many languages actually even exist in the world, there are so many. Sometimes it’s difficult just trying to distinguish between different dialects of the same language; however, people have estimated that there are somewhere close to 7000 languages in the world today!

That means that there are 7000 different ways to say “hello” to one another. It’s a bit of a difficult concept to wrap the brain around—just think—it’s pretty safe to say that there are more words that mean “hello” in all the languages of the world than there are words that you might speak today! Now that is absolutely crazy! It’s pretty much unfathomable.

So what do you do to celebrate World Hello Day? Well, it’s pretty simple. Say “hello” to everyone you see. Say it to your mom, your dad, your siblings, your dog, your friends, to strangers, say it to your camp trunk from Everything Summer Camp if you want! No “hello” is too eccentric on World Hello Day.

The idea behind World Hello Day is to get a message to world leaders. The message: to use communication over force when taking care of conflicts. The world has been celebrating Hello Day since 1973 and its popularity has only gone up over the years.

So, for the first time, I’ll end today’s post by saying, Hello!