So, with today being a leap year day I’ve been thinking about weird traditions based around dates. Not just the obvious ones for anniversaries of events or official holidays, but the less official ones that just sort of happened. I mean obviously the 29th of February is an official one, it would be difficult to organise the change to the calendars otherwise, but there are so many strange traditions all tied up with dates.
This is not super well illustrated by the fact that the only tradition I can remember for Leap Years is that women can be the asker in engagements, and yes I am aware that this is a horrendously awkward way of putting it but I honestly couldn’t think of a better way. And of course every news organisation in the world feels the need to showcase people who have their birthday on February 29th. But I don’t know much about the way any other cultures celebrate today. Or if it is celebrated anywhere?
Maybe I’m just being weird and wanting to assign celebrations to anything and everything, but it feels like it should be something we celebrate? It only comes around once every four years after all, and it’s an entirely extra day to the calendar. Why is there not a holiday?
OK, maybe you can tell that I’ve been thinking about world building and holidays and anniversaries in particular. It’s just something that I find really interesting as a concept and also a useful way of world building. I mean, pick an anniversary or holiday that you know. What is it about? Why do people celebrate it? How has it changed over the years, has it become more or less celebrated? Has it become commercialised? Has it ever been outlawed or banned? There’s just so many interesting ideas that you can bake into the world building around holidays.
Also, in case you are wondering, yes, I did pick a picture of a ballerina jumping for the photo for this post because it is a Leap Year.