Pecha Kucha

As you already know, my presentation was about significant events. The very words significant events may bring to your minds different thoughts. Some unique life experience, a break point in history, or any other event, that for some personal reason you consider it significant. When I read significant events in the list of possible topics, what came to my mind were such holidays as father’s day, mother’s day, friendship’s day and St Valentine’s Day. As I said before, this has to do with personal experiences. What has led me to consider these events significant are mainly three reasons:
• First, Despite the fact that the holidays have been commercialized to a great extent, the motives that push different people in history to set this special dates were based on love, affection and respect. And however much the ways of celebration have changed, the basic ideas behind the occasions remain the same: to acknowledge these people’s contribution in our lives, to express love for them and pay them a tribute.
• Secondly, our hectic lives often leave us with almost no time to gather with our family and our friends. It’s like we always have other priorities and we keep on putting off meeting our beloved ones. But, special occasions as mother’s day turn everything round. The people we are honoring that day become top priority and we are ready to leave aside anything to be together with them.
• And last, what actually makes these occasions SIGNIFICANT is the significant roles mothers, fathers, friends and partners play in our lives. Is It necessary for me to say that Mother’s love is the first unbroken bond we will ever know. That she will never be able to bear when we are suffering; she will prefer to stand in our place and take the pain instead? That father’s are the real super heroes who are ready to do anything to bring a smile to our face? That friends are part of us? That they are a shoulder to cry on and they are the ones who have the right recipe to share joy so that it becomes a double joy and to share sorrows so that it becomes a half sorrow? That partners provide us with a different kind of love which has proved to have the power of cheering us up when we feel everything is gloom and doom; that they are the ones with whom we share dreams and with whom we plan to spend a life together?

All of them occupy a place in our heart. They are worthy of adoration and thanks for all the demonstrations of love they have had since the very first minute we start walking together along this mysterious way that life is.

Going back to the celebrations themselves, of course they didn’t emerge out of the blue. When I was planning the presentation I thought that there must be interesting stories behind each of them. And I feel tempted to know everything about it.

If you want to go through the origins of each of the holidays again, here they go:

The first of these holidays that we celebrate is St Valentine’s Day. As we all know, every year, the fourteenth day of February millions all around the world present their beloved ones with cards, chocolates, flower or any other gift to celebrate love and affection between intimate companions.
The reason behind this holiday is a cleric named Valentine. As the legend goes, in those days, Claudius II had prohibited marriage for young men. He considered that it made men weak. So, St Valentine started holding secret marriage ceremonies. Of course, it was only a matter of time before Claudius II came to know about st valentine’s secret and gave the order of execution of the bishop. Valentine is believed to have been executed on February 14th. Thus, this date became the day for all lovers and Valentine became its Patron Saint.

The second holiday we celebrate is father’s day. The first observance of father’s day dates back to 1900. Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton organized this special day to celebrate the lives of hundreds of fathers who had been lost in the Mononghan Mining disaster. Other sources believe Sonora Smart of Dodd was the one who came up with the idea of celebrating father’s day. Sonora wanted a celebration to honor fathers like hers who had to raise his family alone. When the first celebration was held, young Christians went to church wearing roses: red roses to honour living fathers and black ones to honour deceased ones. Sonora travelled through Washington carrying gifts to shut-in ill fathers. It took many years to make the holiday official. In our country it was first celebrated on august 24th 1958 to honor Jose de san martin.

One of the most enthusiastically expected holidays is friendship’s day. This tradition began in 1935 when the US congress decided to dedicate a day in the honor of friends. It is believed that the decision was moved by the devastating effects of the WWI. With time several other countries followed suit in adopting this tradition.
In Argentina friendship’s day was encouraged by Enrique Febbraro who, after Apollo XII’S landing on the moon, saw that the whole world became united. Therefore, he launched a campaign to officially declare July 20th friendship's day.
In October we have a special day to honor mothers. This special date can be traced back to ancient Greece celebrations in honor of Rhea, the mother of the gods. During the 1600 the early Christians in England celebrated a day to honor Mary. By a religious order the holiday was later expanded in its scope to include all mothers and it was named the Mothering Sunday. Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mothers and other family members.
In later times mothering Sunday lapsed in Europe and it was afterwards revived through the influence of American women.

Hope you enjoy my presentation! I'd like to say that yours were great!