GRANDPARENTS 'DAY
The festival is conceived as a moment of meeting and gratitude towards grandparents, guardian angels of childhood. The idea of a national day for grandparents first came to a West Virginia housewife, Marian Mc Quade. Ms. Mc Quade, a mother of 15 and grandmother of 40 grandchildren, started the campaign in 1970, but had been working with the elderly since 1956. In 1978, the then American President, Jimmy Carter, proclaimed that the National Day of Grandparents Grandparents Day was celebrated annually on the first Sunday in September after Labor Day.
Promoter of the grandparents' day, for a decade in Europe, is above all the Dutch Flower Office which every year organizes initiatives and events to celebrate the unique and precious bond between grandparents and grandchildren and invites them to give grandparents a plant, to thank them. of everything these special guardian angels do for their grandchildren.
In Italy, the still young feast of grandparents is celebrated on 2 October; the anniversary falls on 2 October, the day on which the Church celebrates the Angels. It was established in 2005 by the Parliament which officially recognized the fundamental role of our grandparents and certainly does not look bad next to Father's Day and Mother's Day. The institution of the festival provides for a concrete commitment by the local authorities (Regions, Provinces and Municipalities) to establish initiatives to enhance the role of grandparents and an annual prize, delivered by the President of the Republic to the grandfather and grandmother of Italy.
The institutions thus wanted to sanction the role they play in our society where they represent an important point of reference, a resource of great value, a wealth of experience and wisdom to draw upon, as well as a concrete and indispensable help in the education of young people. within the families to which they belong. In Italy, on the occasion of the grandparents' day this year their grandchildren will be able to give a personalized plant, small, flowery, evergreen or fragrant.
In America, on this day schools, the church and specific organizations honor grandparents and elders with special manifestations. Grandparents' Day has already existed for decades in the United States, and is also celebrated in other countries, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, France where, however, grandmothers are celebrated separately from grandparents. Some families, on this day, gather to delight in board games that easily favor "generational" encounters between young and old.