Investing in Family: It's a Holiday Somewhere

Recently, a certain well-known chain restaurant hosted Pancake Day in which they urged everyone to come on down for a free stack of flapjacks. While my family didn't head out to join the crowd of brave souls who lined up for this promo, we did do our own celebration at home. Okay, maybe celebration is a strong word, but we did observe and mark the special occasion with some of our own pancakes for dinner.

The whole thing got me thinking about winter and life and how the months after Christmas and before spring can seem long, dark and even tedious. (You're probably thinking: All this from "Pancake Day?" And the answer is: yep, all that from "Pancake Day.") Then it dawned on me: Why not make at least a few days during these long winter days more, well, fun by celebrating a holiday. Now, I'm not talking about a biggie like Easter but rather one more along the lines of "International Sword Swallowers Day" (February 25 for those of you who missed it) or "Potato Chip Day" (coming up on March 14). These are just two examples of crazy, wacky, zany days that occur throughout any given month, and they are also just two examples of days you could use to bring some life, celebration and laughter into your home during the drudgery of winter.

Pick Your Day...Or Week...Or Month

In order to celebrate an everyday holiday at home, you need to pick one. A simple Google search of "everyday holidays" will bring up a number of sites with a list of holidays from the serious to the just-plain-out-there. One of the sites I happen to like is www.brownielocks.com.

Once you find a site and list you like, gather the family around the computer (or go solo and plan a surprise holiday attack), and decide what day you're going to celebrate at home. Or, if a day seems too short, pick out a week's theme (American Chocolate Week, anyone?) and starting planning.

Celebrate Good Times

And plan what? Well, your celebration. And it is yours, meaning you can go all out, full throttle and pedal to the metal in your fun and celebration tactics, or you could plan a few simple things to spruce up an otherwise normal, drab Wednesday.

For example, "Cereal Day" is coming up on March 7. A really creative person could get, well, creative with this holiday. And then there's someone like me, who'd probably plan a cereal necklace craft and try to incorporate cereal into dinner for that night. Whatever you do, the main goal is to take an ordinary day and give it some flavor. The plus side is you'll be spending time with the family, doing something different and maybe even making some memories in the process.

Also, don't forget to use your friend, the internet. Many of these out-of-the-ordinary holidays have their own websites which can supply you with celebration ideas as well as a bit of education (disguised as fun, of course) for the kiddos.

We'd love to hear from you, MomVesting readers. What kinds of "holidays" have you celebrated? What are some of the things you do to help the winter days seem not so long?

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