How to Create Holidays - International and National Days
Creating Holidays and Special Days
In the past few years, there has been a tremendous proliferation of daily holidays, special, wacky, bizarre, International, and national days. Lately, it seems everyone, especially companies and organizations, want to create their own special day. Many people ask “Just how does one go about creating a holiday, an international or national holiday, or a special day”? That is a great question. Creating a new holiday is fun and exciting. You’ve dreamed up a day in your mind that is just waiting for you to create it. Amazingly, no one has thought to create this day before it became your brainchild. And, now you want to share this new special day with the world, along with a little recognition as its creator… Cool!
Let’s explore how to create a holiday. The key to creating a new day is to gain recognition from multiple sources. With the growth of these new holidays, it gets more difficult to get these new days recognized.
How to Create a Holiday or Special Day
Anyone can create a new holiday. The tough job is to gain recognition. Here are some tips for getting your special day created and recognized:
Create the name for your holiday.
Define what the day is all about, and why it is created.
How should we celebrate and observe this day? Define what people can and should celebrate on the date of your holiday.
Assign a date to celebrate your new oliday. It could be a fixed date or vary (I.e. the first Thursday in May). If it varies, make sure it is well defined.
Identify the creator(s), the creator’s city, and state of residence. We recommend you DO NOT identify the street address. Other contact information is optional.
State the creation date of your holiday. The date created is sometimes different from the dated celebrated.
Using all of the information and definitions from the above steps, create a website for your special day. While this is not an absolute necessity, how else will you legitimatize and promote your new holiday?
The URL should be the title of the day, if possible.
Add relevant pictures to the website.
Now comes the hard part… getting your new holiday and the website recognized.
We recommend SEO work.
Also, email existing holiday calendar websites, announcing your special day, and provide the link to your website.
How to Create a National Day
Of particular note is the growth of “National Days”. Lately, new holiday creators are adding the word “National” to an overwhelmingly large number of proposed and recently created days. The word “National” has even been added by some holiday calendar websites for special days that were not created as a “National” day! This causes confusion as to whether or not, a special day is in actuality a true national day.
A truly “National” day is literally an act of Congress and takes a lot of work. We investigated this issue with a company that wanted to create a national day and had the resources to do it. They decided it was “too much work”. The first step is to contact your local congressperson. Once you have their attention, you have to create the proposal and hopefully, it will get onto the congressional agenda before too many years have passed. If you are intent on doing it and have the patience, it is possible.
The President of the United States can also issue a proclamation declaring a National day. President Ronald Reagan was fond of issuing these proclamations.
Important: Anyone can add the word “National” to a day that they created. It is perfectly fine. However, it is not a true “National” day in the sense that neither Congress nor a sitting President has declared it. This distinction is important, as it takes a lot of effort to get Congress or the president to proclaim it.
Why is it important to identify and distinguish true "National" days?
We care about the term “National’ on holiday titles and others do as well. It is fine with us if someone puts the “national” tag on a holiday that they create. But, we have several reasons why we believe this distinction is very important:
First of all, to respect the intent of the creator. We’ve spoken with or traded emails with many holiday creators. We feel it is important to maintain the holiday title as they intended.
The creators of holidays and events agree the title should be as they created it, and others do not have the right to change it. Some of the creators have said a presidential proclamation or congressional resolution would be nice.
We also feel it is important to distinguish those holidays that are truly declared as a “National” day by congress or the president. This is not a simple task. Often the creator of the holiday spends much time and effort to attain an official declaration.
History mustn’t be altered. If we arbitrarily change a title, what’s next?
Requirements to be a True National Day
To be a true “National” day, one of the following conditions must be met:
The President of the United States issues a proclamation.
An Act of Congress. This requires a legislator to propose the day and congress votes approval.
In other countries, the president (or head of the government) or the national legislature declares it to be a national day.
How to Create a World or International Day
To create a World or International holiday, follow the steps to creating a holiday or special day as described above. Add the word “World” or “International” for holidays designed to celebrate and observe around the globe. Alternately, you can use the word “Global” in your holiday title.
The only organization we know of that creates and proclaims a formal or true World or International day is the United Nations. They have created quite of few of these special days. They usually do so to promote a UN program of theirs, or to promote a global cause. However, they do not seek or pursue, or accept requests from the general public to create a global holiday.
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