These days, there are a lot of far-fetched holidays, fabricated by the likes of Hallmark and 1800Flowers.com. Take some of the silly holidays in September alone, for example. There was Newspaper Carrier Day on the 4^th and Dogs in Politics Day on the 23^rd. And although Fido and the kid that flies by on his bike every morning might like a little something special, we should all truly turn our attention to the people who make Sept. 9^th special – and every other day during the year, for that matter – because this Sunday is National Grandparents Day.
“The impetus for a National Grandparents Day originated with Marian McQuade, a housewife in Fayette County, West Virginia,” say the folks at Grandparents-Day.com. “Her primary motivation was to champion the cause of lonely elderly in nursing homes. She also hoped to persuade grandchildren to tap the wisdom and heritage their grandparents could provide. President Jimmy Carter, in 1978, proclaimed that National Grandparents Day would be celebrated every year on the first Sunday after Labor Day.”

For those of us who still have grandparents in our lives, we should take the opportunity to let them know just how much they mean to us. And for those of us who have lost our grandparents already, there is certainly an elderly person who would love the chance to be a surrogate grandparent for the day. So make a point this Sunday to do something nice for an aging neighbor. Or swing by a nearby nursing home with a basket of fruit. These people have spent a lifetime putting smiles on our faces. It would be the least we could do.
Photo courtesy of NationalGrandparentsDay.com