Happy New Year!

Today it’s time to wring out the old and ring in the new! Here we are in 2022, leaving the good and the bad of the previous year behind us and eager to build on an entire, fresh year that’s rolling out before our feet! From everyone here at Everything Summer Camp, we hope your New Year’s Eve celebration gave a warm welcome to 2022 and that you’re having a wonderful start to this new year!

Here’s a slight peek into how things are the way they are concerning New Year’s. Take a look…

Why do we celebrate on January First?
We first see New Year’s celebrations crop up around 2000 BC in the Middle East. New Year’s came along in March—the time of the vernal equinox—springtime! So what’s with the January 1^st stuff? Well, our current calendar is based on the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar), not so much the calendar they used prior to. So why do we celebrate on January First? Because Julius Caesar said so, that’s why.

Explan-uary the January
It's heavily speculated and widely spread that the month of January was named after the Roman god Janus. It’s actual origin, however, gives itself away in its root—the Latin word ‘ianua,’ meaning ‘door’. This is the name that was chosen to indicate the opening of a new door. What a way to describe the beginning of a new year—am I right?!!

Dietary Luck Down South
Tradition has it that eating leafy greens and legumes on New Year’s Eve brings good fortune for the upcoming year. Supposedly coming from a Jewish New Year custom, folks down south gobble down black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day thanks to this tradition!

Be sure you enjoy yourself this New Year’s Day and enjoy the last of your days off before your winter break comes to an end. Happy New Year once again and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

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

Hey, Swingers!

When you’re just a dance machine, there’s no stopping you. As long as you’ve got the beat and your disco ball, the night never ends! A symbol to signify the 70’s, disco balls, of course, have transcended the decade and are found in skating rinks, concerts, even weddings. But you probably didn’t imagine it was invented until the arrival of disco: January 1, 1970.

Actually the disco ball goes back much longer ago than that.

Before we get into the history of disco balls, give yourself Night Fever! Night Fever! with the cool Mini Disco Ball Light from iScream. You can party like it's 1979 with this travel-sized sphere that projects a color-shifting spectrum of light onto surfaces to bring movement, excitement, and a dance floor! Simply attach the Disco Ball to your USB power supply. Check out the Mini Disco Ball Light by clicking right here.

Just as it is with any invention, it took time for disco balls to really take off in popularity. They finally made it big in the world of nightclubs as a worldwide staple in the 1920s. Even then, however, that wasn’t the beginning of disco balls—that’s just when they became popular. The disco ball actually goes all the way back to 1859.

An invention of two brothers: Charles and Logan McGrath, co-owners of a bar in Basildon, England. They fashioned the disco ball—just one in a great number of experiments they tried to bring interesting lighting effects to their bar to highlight their dancers and bring in more customers. Of course, they weren’t called disco balls back then as disco music had not yet been developed—they were simply referred to as ‘mirror balls’ or ‘glitter balls’.

So when you start dancing to tunes in the light cast by this great Mini Disco Ball Light from iScream, remember that your great-grandparents also partied underneath those shining spheres on the dance floor. Good times! Get your own Mini Disco Ball Light when you click right here and, as always, thanks for reading, Camp Folks!

- 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

Hey, Fossy Folks!

Let’s take a moment here on the Everything Summer Camp Blog today and highlight the next among the many summer camps with whom we’re proud to have developed a wonderful relationship. On our last Summer Camp Spotlight Blog post we journeyed over to the East Coast in New Hampshire where we took a look at Camp Wa-Klo. And we’re essentially staying put to spotlight today’s summer camp, Camp Foss.

Sitting quite nearby the ocean, Camp Foss for Girls found its home on the shore of ‘Big’ Willey Pond back in the early 20’s of the 20^thCentury when a camp committee and James H. Foss of the Strafford County struck an agreement.

By that time, the Camp Foss campgrounds didn’t look like much of a summer camp. It had undergone a lumber operation in previous years.The land sat in disarray, filled with the aftermath of a lumber camp, horse barns, as well as a sawdust pit. There was work to be done to say the least.

James H. Foss and the Foss family set out to raise the money they needed to clean up the land and construct the necessary cabins and dining hall in order to run a summer camp! They raised $3,000. That may sound like a lot, but it was even MORE back then! The value of a few thousand dollars back in 1923 is equivalent to roughly $50,000 in today’s economy. With that money, they built seven cabins and erected the dining hall.  

This girls camp actually started out as a coed camp until1965 when it shifted to an exclusively girls camp where girls get the opportunity for fun activities like Archery, Target Sports, Arts & Crafts,Boating, High and Low Ropes Course, Climbing Tower, Dance, Performing Arts,Cooking Class, Field Hockey, Basketball, Soccer, Yoga, Gaga Ball, Four-Square,Volleyball, Stand Up Paddle Board, Swimming, Inflatables, and tons more fun!

Check out all the fun you could be having in the next camp season if you choose Camp Foss for your summer camp stay. You can get a closer look when you check out their website by clicking right here and, as always,thanks for reading!

- John