Content Channels:

Major Holidays
Holidays by Month
Food Holidays
Garden Holidays
Birthdays
Anniversaries
Just 4 Fun
This Day in History

Christmas
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Easter
Valentine's Day
St. Patrick's Day
Chinese New Year

Holiday Recipes
Garden Recipes
Pumpkin Recipes

How to Create Special Days

"National" Days Definition

How to Create Holidays, National, and International 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, and especially companies and organizations, want to create their own special day. Many people ask "Just how does one go about creating a holiday or 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 to be created. And, you are amazed that no one has thought to create this day before it became your brain child. 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, why it is created.

• How should we celebrate and observe this day? Define what people can and should to celebrate on the date of your holiday.

• Assign a date that it is to be celebrated. 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 date it was created. The date created is sometimes different than 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". The word "National" is being added 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 the whether or not, a special days 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 who 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 congress person. Once you have their attention, you have to create the proposal and hopefully it will get onto the congressional agenda before too many years has passed. If you are intent on doing it and have the patience, it can be done.

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 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:

1.  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.

2. 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.

3. 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 done lightly. Often the creator of the holiday spends much time and  effort to attain an official declaration.

4. It is important that history is not altered. If we arbitrarily change a title, what's next?   

To be a true "National" day, one of the following conditions must be met:

1. A proclamation is issued by the President of the United States.

2. An Act of Congress. This requires a legislator to propose the day and congress votes approval.

3. For other countries, the president (or head of the government) or the national legislature declares it to be a national day.

Did You Know? National days are not limited to the U.S. A national day can be declared by the leaders of any country of the world for their country.

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" when the holiday is to be celebrated and observed 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 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.     

Federal Holidays Definition:

There are ten U.S. federal holidays. Most government offices are closed. Non -essential employees have the day off. The post office is closed. Banks are closed. States and businesses observe some, but not all of these holidays by giving employees the day off.

Public Holidays Definition

Many people view public holidays as synonymous to Federal holidays. Not all federal holidays are public holidays. Public holidays are those where much of the general public has the day off from work, usually with pay. Federal, state, and usually local government agencies are closed. Banks, the Post Office, and libraries are closed, too. In addition, many businesses, from manufacturing to office workers are also give employees the day off.

Some states also have one or two public holidays of their own.

Note: If you are using the dates in our site for calendar or other publishing purposes, we recommend you double check with other sources. Each year, we find a number of holidays with conflicting dates.

Did You Know? There are literally thousands of holidays, special events and observances, more than one for every day of the year. Many new holidays are being created on a very frequent basis. At Holiday Insights we strive to thoroughly research and report details of each one as accurately as possible.