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Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
Money was flowing like water in the 1920’s and Macy’s Department Store was scooping it up hand over fist. The company went public in 1922 and began buying up competitors throughout the country. However, the flagship store remained in Harold Square in New York City. In 1924, they expanded the Harold Square store to take up an entire city block with a whopping one million square feet of retail space. To celebrate the opening of the “World’s Largest Store”, Macy’s decided to have a parade on Thanksgiving day 1924. Ironically, the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was not about Thanksgiving. Instead it was entirely Christmas themed. Macy’s employees dressed…
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Friday the 13th
Every culture has some sort of superstition around the number 13. Friday the 13th was said to be the most unlucky day of the year. There’s even a phobia- triskaidekaphobia. Why did 13 and specifically Friday the 13th become so feared? Some folklorists maintain there is no written evidence for the superstition prior to the 19th century. However, there is anecdotal from much earlier. Catholic belief was Christ was crucified on Friday the 13th. Some Christians take it farther and say Eve tempted Adam, the Flood began, the Temple of Solomon was destroyed and the Tower of Babel fell all on Friday the 13th. From a non Christian perspective, there…
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Mother’s Day
Today is Mother’s Day for our American readers, and we would like to wish everyone a happy one. The roots of the American holiday go back to the early 20th century and the efforts of Anna Jarvis. Anna Jarvis was born in 1864 in Grafton, West Virginia. With the help of her mother, she was able to obtain an education and set out to be a school teacher. Tragedy struck, when her father died in 1902 forcing her and her mother to move to Philadelphia to live with relatives. On May 9, 1905, Anna Jarvis’ mother died and Anna was devastated. In trying to cope with her grief and guilt…
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Easter
A quick read for you while you tuck into your chocolate eggs. Easter…. Where did it come from? The venerable Bede noted in his work ‘Reckoning of Time’ that there had been a celebration during the early Anglo-Saxon period of the Goddess Eostre, from the Germanic Ostara, from the month of her name Ostarmanoth. Eostre is closely associated with the Goddess of Dawn, re-birth and mother nature, demonstrating the renewal of the Earth in Spring-time. Her symbol is the Hare. Due to her association with the Dawn and new life, Eostre is closely paired with the Norse Freyja, Goddess of fertility, however Freyja is more closely symbolized by cats, as…
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The History of the Wedding Ceremony!
But what about the origins of the nuptials? It’s fun imagining early Hunter-Gatherers standing at the altar in a big white frock, but in seriousness it more than likely didn’t happen that way. We have no clear understanding of how pre-historic matches took place. But we can theorise that they were much simpler in practice. Disregarding the classic myth of caveman dragging the object of his desire by the hair to the nearest cave, hunter gatherers mated for life more often than not, pairing was based on physical attributes, with males choosing a female who was strong, fit and well-shaped, all classic signs of healthy and fertile. Males would be…
