Celebrating Every Festival Known to Man: the Weird, the Wonderful and the Bizzarre

Have you ever considered how many celebrations and festivals there are? Ever wondered what it would be like to try and celebrate them all? Well, for one year (and one year only) that is exactly what I’m doing!

“Why on earth are you doing that?” accompanied with a baffled look and a step back is the typical response to me explaining that I am celebrating every festival known to man. It is a question any rational person would ask when they see me with stickers on my face whilst eating my lunch, and “because it’s Valentine’s Day and it’s a tradition in Latvia” just puzzles the innocent inquirer further.

Let me try and explain why I am celebrating as many cultural, religious, national and international festivals as is humanly possible this year. How and why it all started is something that even I am not entirely clear about. All I know, is that for some unknown reason – probably in the name of ‘fun’ – me and some friends decided that it would be a good idea to set each other a yearly ‘challenge’.

That’s it. That is all that is binding me to this celebratory year, an agreement among friends. It’s just a game of dares that went too far! (But please note, I am not the only crazy fool who is partaking in a strange activity this year – honest!)

Other challenges past and present include becoming an origami master, reading all of the Harry Potter books out-loud on film, getting on a game show, learning to play the violin, making a 12 piece pottery set, becoming a wine connoisseur, becoming a cheese connoisseur, earning £200 from busking, learning to play the harmonica, writing a review of the top 50 films and more. Last year I had to learn to ride the unicycle, and this year it was a choice between ‘going on a pilgrimage’ or celebrating EVERYTHING!

When I first accepted the challenge I had no idea of its scale! Every week has at least one festival and many days have multiple celebrations as once. There’s national chip week, national pet lover’s day, national science and engineering week, national wear red day (in aid of national heart month), Fat Thursday, cook a sweet potato day, banana split day, peanut butter lover’s day, dog biscuit appreciation day, white day, black day, the controversial ‘steak and blow job’ day, world telecommunications day, world water day, fascination of plants day, day of the dead, burning of the socks festival and it’s currently caffeine awareness month! And that’s without the obvious Shrove Tuesday, lent, Ramadan, Hanukah, Independence Day, St George’s Day, Father’s Day Valentine’s Day, Christmas Day … you get the idea. My calendar has never been so busy!

But even these commonly celebrated festivals have a lot more to them than you might think. A little bit of research and you soon find weird and wonderful traditions from at home and abroad. To give you a taste of what I’ve been up to so far; I’ve eaten dumplings for breakfast, enjoyed a raw fish salad to celebrate the birthday of all men, hosted a donut eating competition (no hands) for Fat Thursday, had a day of non-socialising (it was bad luck), had a pancake day race, eaten pea soup, I am currently being a vegetarian and not eating biscuits or chocolate for lent, I only had one meal and put ash on my forehead for ash Wednesday, left sweets outside my housemates doors from the Norfolk legend ‘Jack’ on Valentine’s day, went speed-dating, set off Chinese sky lanterns and ate nothing but pancakes for every meal of the day.

Some of the traditions are hilarious, some are completely unexplained, and some are just weird, but it’s a good lesson in cultural awareness! However, there are an inhumane amount of festivals! It’s a full time job researching, buying, preparing, making and celebrating, it’s hard to celebrate them all as well as getting on with normal life (it’s probably why different cultures normally just stick to their national holidays and not embrace the worlds holidays – we’d never go to work!) But even well-known festivals like Pancake Day have odd traditions in different places such as a town in Scarborough where they close schools early and invite people to skip!

Many of the festivals involve food, either a lack of it, or lots of it! I have enjoyed the feasting so far, but I am not looking forward to fasting! I think Ramadan will be the greatest challenge … but there are loop holds such as travelling, becoming seriously ill or getting pregnant?!

So if you see someone ridiculously overdressed for St George’s Day, hosting an Easter Egg hunt or hot cross bun eating competition or even telling stories in the square for World Story Telling Day- now you’ll know why.

If you want to follow my progress, or even suggest any festivals I haven't planned to celebrate yet, then just check out the group on Facebook! 

http://www.facebook.com/groups/356358911055333/