Today Is …

 

Children’s Day in Iceland. Celebrate with your own children or let the child within come out and play.

Saint Mark’s Eve. According to folklore of the English countryside, the ghosts of all men, women, and children destined to pass away in the next year can be seen floating by on this night by any person brave enough to spend the night awake on the front porch of a church. However, if a person was unfortunate enough to fall asleep during the vigil or if he failed to repeat it annually for the remainder of his life, he would never wake up the next morning.

In North Africa, this holiday is called Maimuna. The evening meal features dairy foods symbolizing birth and fertility: milk, figs, ears of wheat, pancakes with butter or honey. The table is decorated with a live fish in a bowl (like the table for St. Joseph (see Mar 19) or Nawruz (see Mar 20) and a bowl of flour containing golden rings. The following day is devoted to picnics at beaches, fields and in cemeteries.

The striking similarity of Maimuna to No Rooz (celebrated on Spring Equinox in Persia), plus its geographic location, suggests that this is a hybrid holiday, an integration of the old Zoroastrian New Year celebration with the rituals of Passover.
Waskow, Arthur, Seasons of Our Joy, Beacon 1982

Secretaries Day – The Wednesday of the last full week in April has been designated as Secretaries Day, perhaps to provide secretaries with a welcome day off during a month with no other paid holidays. Having spent a large portion of my working life as a secretary, I always advocate for the honoring of this often overlooked and underestimated profession. Secretaries will get another chance to celebrate on August 25th, the feast day of their patron saint, St. Genesius of Arles.

April 24

Birthday of the Sun China
Children’s Day – Iceland
Feast of the 3 Holy Maries
General Federation of Women’s Clubs’ “Federation Day”
Happenstance and Coincidence Evening – Fairy
Library of Congress Day
National Concord Day – Niger
National IBM Personal Computer Day
National PC/Typing Contest begins
National Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day
National Remberance of Man’s Inhumanity To Man Day
Native Son Day – Alton, Illinois
Passover – Judaism
Plumber’s Day
Professional Secretary’s Day
Rattlesnake Day – Magnum, Oklahoma
St. Egbert’s Day
St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen’s Day
St. Mark’s Eve
St. Mellitus’ Day
Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day
Teach A Child To Save Day
Tulip Festival – Netherlands

28 – May 3:The three day Festival of Flora and Venus, or the Florialia in Rome; Goddess of Sexuality and Spring flowers.

30: Walpurgisnacht celebrated by German witches

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Courtesy of GrannyMoonsMorningFeast