January 20–Mental Health Day

One specific holiday that I would make up would be a “mental health” day. Just a day where people take off to have no work and no school, a time to take off and focus on time needed. I would make the day of my uncle’s passing, January 20, the time of this holiday. I would want my family and others to take this day and celebrate their passed loved ones who’s lives been cut short due to suicide.  Having someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, and to just keep you company can be the most to someone who’s never had that before. This holiday can be a time where volunteers such as myself would help those in need of someone to converse with. Celebrating one’s death may seem cruel unless you look at their death as something that is meant to be happy as they aren’t here on earth suffering to live another day, or to please anyone. My family has started an annual tradition to celebrate his death each year and admire all the wonderful times that we did get to spend with my uncle. I know that being together for him would be something that he continues to be proud of. –Sarah Dumeng ‘22

February 16–Spend-the-Day-With-Your-Pet Day

A holiday that I’d love to be national is Spend-the-Day-With-Your-Pet Day. A day dedicated to your best friend whether it’s a dog, a cat, a fish, any animal. I know there’s national pet day and National dog, cat, etc. day, but there isn’t a day where the whole day is dedicated to having fun and spending time with your pet. The day would be full of fun activities that you do with your pet like go on a walk, go to the park, and go get ice cream. Although pets like fish and hamsters don’t do much, you can still take them with you in their tank and cages to the park. The whole point is to just spend time with your pet anywhere and however you want. There would also be no school for anyone, including college, and parents can stay home if they want, but they’re still getting paid. This holiday could even be considered beneficial because studies have shown that being with your pet relieves stress and lowers anxiety. It could be a type of mental health day, which everyone needs. I can speak from experience that anytime I’m stressed about school work or just life in general, my dog always makes me feel better just by petting him. Spend-the-Day-with-Your-Pet Day would be a day where everyone can relax without worrying about anything. It’s a day where everyone can take a break from reality and show love and affection to their pets who deserve it for their loyalty and companionship. –Cindy Hernandez ‘22

March 4–Music Appreciation Day

Honestly, I don’t see why we can’t have a holiday dedicated to just music. I want a holiday where it’s stress free and we’re all just vibing to music. No school obviously, we don’t need distractions. Let’s put it on March 4, my birthday, and that’ll be my present as well. Let it be just listening in your room or house, driving in the car, walking with a speaker, let’s just put each other onto new music we’ve never heard of. Music has such a powerful impact whether you want to believe it or not. It can legit affect our moods depending on what music you’re listening to. If you’re in your feelings, really happy, upset or furious, music is always an outlet to express our feelings and I feel that it’s very important to voice ourselves. For some people, music is their voice in the world. For musicians, they would honestly have a field day with this holiday because they practically live music everyday, well that’s at least what I do. Whether it’s singing a song, playing an instrument or just producing on your music software, music should definitely have its own holiday. I’d probably name it Music day or something easy like that, no need to complicate the simple. That’s my holiday that I created and why I should make it for the world to see. –Christopher Sinisterra ‘22

March 18–National Game Day

What is the National game day you ask? It’s a day we put our differences aside and have fun. A day where all shapes, sizes, and colors get together to have a day to socialize. Not many realize but video games and even board games not only provide a long time of fun and competition but many get to know each other. For example a game like Dungeons & Dragons is a role-playing game where players create their own characters with their own personalities to make it through the tough missions the dungeon master throws at them. Games let people find out who they are, whether it’s being competitive, having fun, or to make friends. Yes, there will be shouting amongst teams but it’s all meant to hype up their team. It’s all about cooperation and teamwork. Children also learn who to work as a team which is a vital skill to know in adult life. This day also includes sports and can be used to advocate social lives as it has been proven that suicide and self-harm have been increasing more and more every year. Believe it or not but people need friends to survive, it doesn’t have to be many but one or two. This day may not improve physical health but mental health as it’s one of the hardest ones to reach and as this day targets that it also targets a large age group from 0-99. –Oscar Segovia Magana ‘22

May 5–National Ice Cream Day

National Ice Cream Day would take place on my grandmother’s birthday. Ice Cream would have to be one of my favorite desserts and it’s something me and my family will always seek out and enjoy together in summer or even just after dinner. My favorite ice cream would have to be chocolate, it just always has been since I was a baby. When I was a kid, my grandmother and I would always sit and eat chocolate ice cream together and just talk about our day and vent, and it was one of my favorite things to do with her. So on May 5, everybody should make a bowl of ice cream with whatever flavor they like and eat it with your family and catch up with each other and share information about your day with them or new things in your life that they don’t know about. I feel like ice cream is just one of those things that everybody likes, and there is a flavor for everybody so this holiday will be something that everyone will want to celebrate. We all need to vent some days in our life and this holiday can help that. It can help bring families together, and I feel like this day could be needed and appreciated by many. –Kaitlyn Hotz ‘22

June 29–National Compliment Day

I think everyone has been feeling down within the past year and it would be nice to have a day where everyone participated in complimenting someone they know or don’t know on social media. Since social media is known to be one of the most toxic places, people also spend their entire day on those platforms so having a national holiday that involves a positive way to incorporate social media would be a great way to put a smile on someone’s face. Compliments can be left on someone’s post in the comments, posting a picture of them and writing a nice message, or simply writing them a paragraph complimenting them would be a nice way to make someone happy and do the same. Instagram and Twitter only show us the good side of people and sometimes the “cancel culture” can really ruin someone and harm them, so to let people know that there are people who appreciate them should be more than a holiday that occurs once a year. Possibly once every month? Or once every 4 months-so every season we would have a National Compliment Day. I don’t compliment people often, but after this whole year of feeling insecure, I felt that it was important to remind those around you that they are seen and appreciated. I’m sure this is a holiday somewhere, but it needs to be more known. –Mini Phan ‘22

August 1–National Anti-Procrastination Day

This day is going to be about time management and doing all the work that you have been pushing off, and many have likely been pushing off summer homework around this time. They’re usually realizing that they haven’t started and they probably should’ve, yet they’ll keep pushing actually working on it even further. My day is Anti-Procrastination day, where anything you have been putting off must rise up to your acknowledgement once again. Any forgotten deadlines will be researched and confirmed once you once again look through all your assignments to find anything you potentially missed, and then you’ll have to make a to-do list with all important things you must finish. You’ll then have to make a schedule, planning out when you’ll work on each assignment, though still leaving some free time for you to do whatever you like or to rest so that you don’t burn yourself out. You don’t necessarily have to finish everything this day or even start everything, all that matters is you’ve reassessed yourself and your work, actively getting into the mindset that if you don’t do your work now, you’ll suffer later on. You don’t even have to strictly abide by the schedule, either, as long as you are making enough progress. –Karen Portillo ‘22

September 15–National Apple Harvest Day

I would create “National Apple Harvest Day” on September 15. Whenever I think of the month of September, the first thing that comes to my mind is the start of fall. When I think of fall, I am immediately drawn to the thought of pumpkins, beautiful color-changing leaves, farms and apples. In the spirit of these associations, National Apple Harvest Day would focus on the fun events that make up a day of apple picking in an orchard. To start the day off, it would only make sense to enjoy an apple-flavored breakfast food. For me, I would love to start this day off with a fresh apple, either Granny Smith, Honey Crisp, or Gala. Of course, it would make sense to visit an apple orchard on this day and go apple picking. When arriving at the orchard, people could either walk straight to the fields and start picking their apples. Conversely, they could also take a hayride pulled by a tractor towards the apple fields. From there on out, they would spend a decent portion of the day walking around the orchard, picking apples and enjoying the scenery. Once finished, people could return to the front of the orchard and visit animals. However, a visit to an apple orchard is not complete without stopping for a hot and fresh apple cider donut and apple cider (though I personally prefer apple juice over apple cider). Finally, once people return home, they could finish off the apple-themed festivities by baking with their apples or making a homemade applesauce. –-Keara Farrell ‘22

September 22–Volleyball Appreciation Day

The way we would celebrate this day is by doing things like wearing our best (or wackiest) volleyball attire- It can be a jersey, volleyball shorts, shoes, or anything related to volleyball. I would even go on to add an option for those who don’t really play volleyball, to celebrate a sport of their choosing. As exemplified by the sports teams across the nation, the sport of volleyball is dominated by females. One of the goals of this holiday would be to shine light on the fact that you don’t have to be a female  to enjoy playing volleyball. As we talk about it more and engage males in the conversation, it will become less of a norm that females only play volleyball. The sport also requires the same amount of athleticism as any other sport; however, many believe that it is rather a “girly” sport. This holiday would also dismantle the negative masculinity outlook that certain individuals have about volleyball. –Mihret Amare ‘22

November 18–Inner Child Day

A holiday that would make up is Inner Child Day. Inner Child Day would be a day in which people of all ages, well mainly those 18 and up would take a day to themselves to do what they enjoy in order to relieve themselves of the fast-paced and stressful world that we live in. Additionally, people would also take this day to commemorate themselves and their inner child for all the experiences and hard work they have endured. Ultimately, one’s inner child is part of what makes us who we are today. Moreover, people would take this day to give themselves a pat on the back and allow themselves to reconnect with their inner child. As the influential rapper Snoop Dogg had once stated in his speech at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, “I wanna thank me. I wanna thank me for believing in me. I wanna thank me for doing all this hard work. I wanna thank me for having no days off. I wanna thank me for never quitting. I wanna thank me for being me at all times.” In the spirit of all our hardships and perseverance, people should celebrate Inner Child Day by partaking in activities that make them happy such as engaging in their hobbies, playing video games, drawing, cooking or even just sleeping in. As long people are satisfied with themselves, allow themselves to be free of some stress and pressure then that’s all that qualifies for the holiday. –Marcda Pierre ‘22

December 20–National Baking Day

I would like to make my holiday in December near Christmas because it has to do with baking. On my holiday I would like for people to bake their favorite goodies like cupcakes, banana bread, or brownies. I personally love baking and so I would like to share that passion with others to do the same especially during this day where people can package their baked goods and give them out to friends and families or even neighbors as an act of kindness so the holiday can double up as doing something fun but also showing kindness to others. It would also be nice if it can be promoted on social media and people can share their recipes for what they’re going to be making so it can spark other people’s ideas to what they want to make or improve on. I also chose my holiday to be in December near Christmas because then families can come together to make instead of baking on their own and it could be a fun bonding activity. I think that Christmas is a day to spend with family and to have fun and my holiday of baking shows what I value and what I hope others can relate to and also value. I will be calling this holiday National Baking Day so that it is nice and simple to remember. –Salina Vo ‘22