You’re probably familiar with the holidays of the recent and fairly widespread religions and nations of Earth; Christmas, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Easter, etc. Generally once a season, most people get together and celebrate some historic event with feasting and gift giving, sometimes also fireworks or other festivities. In my city; Inisfree, we do, too.
Holidays in Inisfree are a little different, though. We still gather in our homes and public recreation places for them, and there is certainly still joy, togetherness, feasting, and gift giving, but our calendar, reasons for celebrating, and the way in which we interact during our holidays all have our own signature twist to them. We Inisfreeans celebrate in true style.
First off, all of our holidays and other special events are not associated with any religion or religious figure. Our focus is instead on love, compatibility, and each other. We also celebrate more than just the important moments of one nation; we honor them all, and you’ll find calendar days reserved to recognize the biggest milestones and favorite times from hundreds of them.
Secondly, that unique calendar of ours I mentioned follows a different sequence of months; our months are all the same length, and all have different names than what you are used to from outside. Take a look here and you’ll see what I mean. We think you’ll be pleasantly impressed.
Third, you’ll never see or hear a single advertisement in our city to buy anything for any of our holidays. We simply don’t do that; there is no commercialism here in our realm, nor advertisements or money in the first place. We don’t even have gift cards on the shelves of our grocery store, and no one cuts down any trees when it gets near the time for the new year.
Fourth, the only gifts you’ll see are of three varieties, the first being gifts of loving interaction. Outside our city, this comes in the form of handshakes and hugs. Inside Inisfree, our residents and guests enjoy sharing more; we are a more open, peaceful, relaxed, and affectionate society than anywhere else on Earth. The second type of gift often exchanged during holidays in our city is one of custom creations; handmade scrolls instead of gift cards, and other personally crafted things instead of store-bought toys or clothes, is the norm. Finally, the third type of gift exchanged here is one of kajirae, and if you can find their webpage in this website of ours, you’ll know more.
Fifth, we actually have a holiday for every day of the year, though of course most of them are entirely optional, lesser known, and more so just for trying new edible crops or recipes than anything else. The calendar I linked you to above will explain. Some days are also for multiple celebrations or focuses, as more than one milestone was reached, historically, on those days, and/or because different nations celebrate different things at the same time.
Sixth, we don’t just launch fireworks on our most special days; we also have airshows, man-made aurora art, an hour-long temporary flight-path change for our private ‘moon’, and instead of dropping a big ball covered in lights… we raise up the central sections of our downtown area high in the sky for all to see and marvel at. Other captivating quirks of our community here in the heart of Antarctica include: girls born in Inisfree changing their hair, eye, and outfit colors to coordinate with those common for each holiday and time of year, matching the colors of the leaves in Autumn, and then the colors of Halloween, followed by Christmas, Spring, Summer beach towels, and so on.
Seventh, when our people travel to other realms, we always enjoy going out to mingle with the locals, celebrating their holidays in their way. We still celebrate our own back within the walls of Inisfree, but our focus is always on traveling out to connect and bond with anyone who we notice will be compatible with and excitedly in love with us. Such is a key part of the Inisfreean Way.
Coming up, for example, are, of course, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. In Inisfree, their equivalents are: Native Appreciation Day, Koliada / Yule, and the day commemorating the relocation of our city’s main computer from Montana to its place atop the Trans-Antarctic mountain we now call home. We’ll be celebrating both sets; those from outside and before, and our own holidays now within.
So happy holidays from our special home near the South Pole! We hope you’ll join us there someday, whether for one of our holidays or any other great day of the year. To paradise and beyond.
