Happy Children's Day!

[SirKazum]

As the title says... today is Children's Day, at least here Do you celebrate Children's Day where you live? Here, we tend to give presents to children this day (or TV goads them to pester us until we give them the latest thing, at least ). Other than that and shops doing Children's Day promotions and the like, there isn't much to it though. It's still a national holiday, but officially that's because of Brazil's patron saint, even though Children's Day is what most people tend to remember about October 12th.

In honor of the occasion, what's your fondest childhood memory? I'm not sure about mine, but watching The Neverending Story for the first time has to be right up there

[AuthorGirl]

I'd never heard of Children's Day, and I don't think we have anything equivalent in Canada (at least, it's never gotten me a day off school )

My fondest childhood memory would have to be the day I met my best friend. I could describe, but that would probably turn into a very long ramble.

[Honest Tiefling]

Huh. Wikipedia says that America has it...But I've honestly never heard of it. But up here it's in June. Don't tell your children/small relatives, or they might realize that there are multiple children's days and try to get gifts for all of them!

One thing I'm a little unclear on is what is supposed to happen, other then the gifts? Are there activities?

[2D8HP]

In honor of the occasion, what's your fondest childhood memory?....:

My Dad worked at the
Renaissance Pleasure Faire at Blackpoint Forest in Marin County

in the 1970's,

and I have some memories of that, and also in the 1970's I remember watching

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

from the back window of a VW Bug at a drive-in theatre while my parents watched something boring through the front window.

[danzibr]

Hey, that's cool. I wish America had that. Happy Children's Day!

As for your question, my fondest childhood memory... man, that's a tough one. I had a good childhood, and can recall good memories (a pity it's the bad ones that tend to stick around), but no single childhood memory sticks out in particular.

Maybe Easter egg hunting at my grandma's farm. We lived in Wisconsin, drove down to Missouri.

Or eating pancakes with my grandpa (who lived in Wisconsin).

Or countless hours playing video games with my siblings.

Yeah, tough one. Oh, and I do like The Neverending Story :D

[SirKazum]

One thing I'm a little unclear on is what is supposed to happen, other then the gifts? Are there activities?

Like I said, other than the gifts, there really isn't much going on in practice. Some people change their FB profile photos to ones from their childhood, that's a thing these days TV and commerce will sometimes commemorate it with stuff like specials and promotions (or not - it's not really a major holiday). There aren't any standard activities associated with it like, say, Christmas or Easter. I think it's meant to be a day for discussing/focusing on topics relevant to the betterment of children, such as children's health, abuse prevention, and so on, so there may be a few initiatives to that effect by government and NGO's, but they don't get that much press. Oh, and school's off not just for the day but actually for the whole week (most schools anyway), since there's also Teachers' Day and Students' Day (I think) around the same time, so they just bridge all of those school holidays together and make it a week off.

[Lacco]

We already had ours - in Slovakia, the Childrens' Day is on 1st June.

It's not a holiday - but many parents take a day off to be with their kids. The day is usually accompanied by lots of shop promotions (of course), but also events. Some companies throw children parties, most cities organize shows, some fairs, throw competitions - and most schools accept the "No exams on childrens' day!" tradition.

It's not completely unusual for a teacher to just say "Ok, what do you want to do today during this lesson?" or to prepare something interesting/funny (but subject-related) for the kids.

I remember one of the "toughest" teachers on our secondary school - an economics teacher - prepared a presentation on "Economical Impacts of Organized Sports and Cosmetics", while our Ethics teacher discussed merits and shortcomings of South Park as social satire.