Hey, New Year’s Folks!

Congratulations! We did it! We made it to the end of 2021. Tonight we stand on the horizon and look out to the next one. We celebrate by staying awake until the new year arrives at midnight tonight. What you do in those late hours before twelve o’ clock strikes is up to you and the people you’re celebrating with. Here’s a look at a few different ways people celebrate.

The Weird Ways
In Finland, they burn metal in a pan for a ritual called ‘molybdomancy’. They inspect the shadows the metal casts by candlelight as they believe the shapes to predict the future. Ecuadorians will burn paper-filled scarecrows. The Swiss drop ice cream on the floor. Siberians plunge into frozen lakes while carrying a tree trunk. In Mexico, many eat a dozen grapes at midnight to bring themselves good luck in the coming 12 months.

Alotta ‘Fetti
Instead of ice cream, we like to drop lots of shredded paper on the ground—paper that’s super colorful and glittered. We like it so much that we drop 2,000 pounds of it in Times Square each year! It must be quite a sight to see for everyone there and tuning in on television, but can you imagine cleaning up all that celebratory mess?!

The ball drop is over 100 years old
A classy space around town known as One Times Square back in the day, its first New Year’s Eve ball drop was on December 31, 1907. Since then, it’s come gliding down each year (aside from a couple years while World War II was happening). Nowadays, over a million people flock to watch every December. 

Be sure you enjoy yourself this New Year’s Eve and enjoy the last of your days off before your winter break is over. Happy New Year once again and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Merry Christmas Eve, Everybody!

Is your household blooming with the foliage of a large indoor conifer and the scent of chestnuts roasting over an open fire? Is your mind consumed with questions like what’s in those wrapped presents? And do people still roast chestnuts?

Read on with today’s Christmas Eve Blog post from Everything Summer Camp to learn about some holiday traditions that didn’t quite start out as we know them today.

A Delicious Peacock Dinner?
Before turkeys were brought into England over 500 years ago people used to eat a rather different menu. Traditional options for Christmas dinner were geese, boars' head, and peacock. When turkeys first arrived, it was King Henry VIII who was the first to enjoy a turkey dinner on Christmas Day. Many would still opt for goose, however, turkey found its spot on the table for its size and ability to feed a whole family.

No Lie Mince Pie
Nowadays mincemeat pies are traditionally filled with a spicy mixture of dried fruit, apple, candied fruit, spices, and suet. Aside from what’s in the suet, there is no meat in this pie. So why call it a minceMEAT pie, then? Because there used to be meat in it back in the day! Folks in medieval times believed that eating a mince pie daily throughout the 12 days of Christmas would bring great happiness for the coming year.

Oh, What Fun!
You may not think it was possible, but it’s true that some Christmas carols weren’t even about Christmas originally. ‘Deck the Halls’ was actually written about New Year’s Eve—which makes sense considering the lyric ‘Hail the new year lads and lasses.’ What’s more—‘Jingle Bells’ was actually intended to be a Thanksgiving song when it was written!—originally titled ‘One Horse Open Sleigh’!

No matter where these traditions came from or how they’ve changed, the important thing is that we keep the traditions alive in our celebrations today. Enjoy your festivities and, as always, thanks for reading. Merry Christmas!

- John

Happy All Hallows’ Day!

As we covered in the post from yesterday—today, November 1^st, is All Hallows’ Day, also known as All Saints’ Day. A much brighter celebration than the typical Halloween festivities the night before, learn what All Saints’ Day is all about. This holiday is meant for us to recognize all the Saints who have been hand-selected by God throughout the past. Let’s take a look at the history behind this holy day.

To Begin With
In today’s world, we all know All Saints’ Day to be set on the first of November, but it in the very beginning, the day took place on the 13^th of May. It was Pope Boniface IV who dedicated the Roman Pantheon as a church in honor of the Virgin Mary and all martyrs who are deemed to have been welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven. This day was initially put forward in the year 609 AD.

Let’s Make it Official
Roughly 130 years after Pope Boniface IV started this day to honor the saints, Pope Gregory III rescheduled the date of observance to the familiar November 1^st when he dedicated a Roman chapel in honor of all saints. At this point, the celebration was only in Rome. But in another hundred years or so, Pope Gregory IV extended the celebration of All Saints’ Day to the entire Church.

Marching In
While many recognized saints have their own, individual feast days and other days of celebration (such as St. Patrick’s Day, the Feast of St. Stephen, St. Nick’s Day, etc.), not every saint has their own special day. All Saints’ Day is a way to make sure that literally ALL Saints are commemorated on this day of honor.

Enjoy this wonderful holiday and appreciate the saintly figures of our past. If you missed yesterday’s post, you can learn why it’s called Halloween and what it has to do with All Saints’ Day when you click right here. Thanks for joining us today. And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Happy Halloween, Everybody!

The time has come once again to parade ourselves in costumes to pretend we are who we are not. It’s Halloween. From Trick-or-Treating to haunted houses, you can’t go wrong with this holiday! But where does its name come from? Sort of spooky sounding and unique, you might wonder what it means and why we’ve called it by this name for the last 2000 years. 

The celebration of Halloween is even older than its name. It was initially a Celtic celebration called Samhain (pronounced sow-ain) that began on October 31 and lasted until November first—a bit like the modern day New Year’s Eve celebration. In fact that’s exactly what it was for the Celts—it marked the end of the summer season and the beginning of winter, so they made it their New Year’s celebration.

Pagan traditions saw people lighting bonfires and donning costumes in the hopes of warding off ghosts. But as Christianity spread across the world these Pagan traditions were still incorporated in a new holiday announced by Pope Gregory III in the 8th century: All Saint’s Day, November 1^st—a day to honor all the saints in heaven.

‘Hallow’, being another word for ‘holy’ or ‘saintly’ was commonly used back then. So another way of saying ‘All Saint’s Day’ was ‘All Hallows’ Day’. This designates the night before November 1^st, All Hallows’ Eve which means ‘hallowed evening’. You’ll still see Halloween spelled with an apostrophe in it from time to time (Hallowe’en) which was to show the joining of two words: ‘Hallow’ and ‘Even’ (short for evening).

Thanks for joining us on this hallowed night full of excitement and fun fright. From everybody here at Everything Summer Camp, Happy Halloween! And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Summer Lovers!

We all love to feel those glorious sunbeams that shine on down and smack us right on our smiling faces. Sun showers is what summer fun is all about! The days are long and we’re charged with that vitamin D and that summer solar energy! Indeed, the sun provides us with a plethora of benefits such as stress relief, bone strength, strength of immune system, and *ahem* SUNNY demeanor.

The list goes on, but despite all the reasons to soak up the sun, there are other effects of the sun that we would deem less desirable. Ultraviolet rays, for example, that ride down inside those beautiful sunbeams, can cause premature aging of the skin, wrinkles, leathery skin, liver spots, eye damage, and more stuff you don’t want!

It’s important to take the necessary precautions for hanging out in the sun. That’s why Everything Summer Camp offers a plethora of available products containing 100% natural oils and plant-based extracts that ensure your protection from harmful UV rays while being totally skin-healthy themselves.

Today is National Sunscreen Day. It’s a good point to note that Sunscreen Day occurs within the spring season. As I heavily alluded to above, we associate fun in the sun in the summertime. There are still plenty of sunny days right now in the springtime as well as autumn and even winter. Basically, it’s never a bad time to use sunscreen if you think it’s a sunny enough day!

Sunscreen—the magical concoction goes on the skin to absorb and/or reflect ultraviolet rays from the sun that are otherwise harmful to exposed skin while letting all other beneficial properties of sunlight pass on by. But the sun has always been shining down on the earth, so when was sunscreen invented? All the way back in ancient times? Yep!

Check out this Blog post from a handful of years back about the history of Sunscreen by clicking right here. Remember to keep your skin safe this summer and all year long with convenient sun protection from Everything Summer Camp. As always, thanks for reading.

- John