September / October

The World Thank you Day takes place annually on September 21. Here the name says it all. On the one hand, it's about being grateful for everything you have. On the other hand, of course, it also makes sense to say thank you to others:

for example, to Grandma, who perhaps looks after our children, or to our best friend for her solidarity. But certainly there are many people in our minds who contribute to our well-being with small and big help. Thank them, perhaps even with flowers. This surprising gesture will certainly go down well.

Did you know that the «inventor» of the first smiley was the American graphic artist Harvey Ball? He designed the smiling face to motivate employees of an insurance company. Substantially later, he founded the World Smile Corporation, whose sold smiley products benefit children's charities around the world.

This eventually led him to create a World Smile Day, which since 1999 has called on everyone to make at least one person smile through kindness. Little tip? A spontaneous flower greeting brings a smile to the face of even the biggest grouch, guaranteed!

Skeleton or witch at your door? Then it’s Halloween, and the creepily costumed kids are on the look-out for sweets. Halloween was a Celtic festival and comes from Ireland. In those days it was believed that in the evening before All Saints Day the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned and the ancestors would return for a night.

Today's «Trick or Treat» goes back to a custom from England and Ireland, in which chidren went from house to house, sang a song and asked for «soul cake» (small cakes). With every soul cake they got, they released a soul from purgatory. Last but not least, the pumpkin custom comes from Ireland and goes back to a legend about the villain Jack Oldfield. In the USA the custom was developed. The pumpkin lantern is regarded as a symbolic figure for Halloween and is still called «Jack O'Lantern».