Girls day, The Moon Festival, St. Patricks Day, and several other holidays to look forward to.

So, there's a bunch of holidays coming up, some real, some not, but they all are going to be fun.

1. Girls Day (Hinamatsuri)

This is a real holiday and it is on March 3rd. It's a Japanese holiday, and though I live in Japan, I don't know much about it. I know that there are special dolls that are set on display and that there is a special rice sugar candy that is eaten (it's actually pretty good), but other than that I have no idea what it's for. If you want to celebrate it then you'll need to look it up on Wikipedia or something. Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinamatsuri

Personally I will be celebrating this holiday by learning how to make sushi. I'm going to be doing it on Wednesday, so not quite the 3rd, but still. Anyway, on to the next holiday!

2. English Exam

Actually, this is not a holiday, and not something I want to celebrate. I have an english exam on the 12th and I'm really nervous. Just wanted to mention that for some reason, okay, now we can move back to the holidays.

3. The Moon Festival!

This is a holiday I made up from the same world as the Star Festival from last month. This festival is on the 1st full moon of the month (which I believe is on the 16th) and it celebrates the twin sisters of the moon in Lithonian mythonlogy.

This requires a lot of explaining. There are 12 main Stars and thousands of minor ones. For those who this is their first time reading about this, Stars are angelic beings who live in the sky similar to greek gods and goddesses, except more responsible. There is a major Star for each month and for each of the 12 major races (Fairies, Stars, Elves, Merpeople, Dryads, Humans, Dragons, Unicorns, Centaurs, Dwarves, Camolians, and Pheonixes). Each month their is a celebration for which ever Star presides over that month. Spiriel is the star of March, the moons, and elves. She is noble and has a strong sense of responsibility. She is the mother of Lania and Alexa, the twin moon sisters. She is the one who helped the elves become such a strong nation, so all elves owe her their allegiance even if she isn’t their guardian (Stars become guardians over those who are born in their month).
Lithoniel has two moons, one gold and one silver. The moons are not rocky like our moon, though they appear that way from the earth. The two moons are covered in forests. On one of the moons the forest is silver, and on the other moon, the forests are gold (which gives each of the moons their color). Spiriel created the moons as kingdoms for her daughters to dwell, Alexa on the silver moon and Lania on the golden one. There they lived quite happily for a long time.
Lania and Alexa are both minor Stars and so they have a special race that serves under them, the race for these twins was the wolves. There are many types of wolves in Lithoniel and, Lania and Alexa had command over them all, but their are specific wolves who were the most loyal and directly served the Sisters. These were the golden and silver wolves. Each of those wolves served the sister corresponding with their moon color. Besides all that, anything else you need to know about the two sisters is that, they are very different in personality. Lania liked the solitude of her golden moon kingdom, but Alexa felt lonely, so she finds mortal maidens who she considers worthy and brings them to her moon to live in the silver forests as moon maidens. The moon maidens become immortal (unless they are killed in combat) and can live in peace on the silver moon forever, though at times Alexa can summon them to battle to help a country or someone in need. These moon maidens are only chosen once in a while and it has been thousands of years since one has been chosen. The moon maidens can be from any place or humanoid race (humans, elves, and dryads are most common, but there are some others too).
The last fact about the twin sisters is that Lania was killed in a Star Battle of which the details I'm still working on. It was a terrible loss to Alexa and Spiriel, and now the golden moon and wolves are ungoverned. Alexa sometimes tends the golden woods, but the golden wolves only respect her and are not bound by loyalty, so they don't always obey her.

So . . . after that long and probably unnecessary explanation of Lithoniel's moons, I can go on the tell you what the moon festival really is.
It celebrates Spiriel as creator of the moons and her daughters as the mistresses of the moon (even though Lania is gone, she's still respected). On the festival of the moon people go out to watch the moon (this is similar to the star festival) and they eat special moon cakes that are like round soft cookie cracker biscuits with a thin layer of white frosting and silver or gold sprinkles. They are hard to explain. I'm going to be experimenting around with recipes and will post one as soon as I've got a good one. Legends about the moon are told and girls play with their Lania and Alexa dolls. People also dress in moon jewelry and go to performances about the moon legends.
Ways to celebrate the moon festival in this world are similar to the ways to celebrate the Star Festival:

1. Write a poem or song about the moon
2. Draw/paint a picture of the moon
3. Eat moon shaped food
4. Make a dance of the moon
5. Read stories about the moon
6. Take a minute to just sit calmly and think of the moon
7. Invent a moon cake recipe that fits the description I made and send it to me
8. Wear something with the moon on it
9. Make the moon cake recipe when I post it
10. Write a story about the moon (not necessarily the moons I described, just the regular moon or make up your own idea about the moon).
11. Make a Lania or Alexa doll (or both). Lania and Alexa are twins, but they don’t look exactly the same. They both have long wavy hair, but Lania’s was golden and Alexa’s is black. They both have pale skin and blue eyes and they both dress in similar robes, though one is silver and the other is gold. Besides that they also have feathery wings on their back. As with most differences between them, Lania’s wings were golden and Alexa’s are silver.

If you do any of the above things, please send me a picture! Or  tell me about it! I'd love to hear.

Okay, enough about the moon festival, on to the next one.

4. St. Patrick's Day

Make sure to wear green and maybe make some mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches, those are always good.

5. Scroomsawikken

This is a holiday from the Guardians of Ga'hoole series if anyone has read those books. Scroomsawikken traditionally happens on the first new moon after Spring's equal night (equinox). Don't worry, I've already figured out when it is this year, so you don't have to. It's the 30th of March.

Scroomsawikken is a night when the living remember and honor their departed loved ones. For owls, death is seen as a journey. It isn't necessarily sad or scary, it's just a passage to another life in glaumora (owl heaven). On the night of Scroomsawikken, Owls travel to the places of their loved ones final ceremonies to pay their respects. Sometimes they offer flowers and there is singing and dancing to bring the departed ones joy. At the great tree, they light candles to pay tribute to those who have died.

Alright, There you go, here are some holidays that will go on in March. I'm sure there are holidays from other fandoms going on in March, but I haven't looked them up yet. If I find any, I'll be sure to write about them. That's mostly everything, except I also have a new poll up in the right hand corner. Please go check that out. Anyway, thank you and I hope to be posting again soon.