National Grandparents Day is a holiday that is celebrated the first Sunday after Labor Day and is used to celebrated both maternal and paternal grandparents. In 2018, we celebrate this holiday on September 9.
This holiday was first created by Marian McQuade before 1973. However, it wouldn’t be recognized as a holiday until President Jimmy Carter and Senators Robert Byrd and Jennings Randolph introduced official legislation, when it officially became a national holiday in 1978.
The statute making Grandparents Day a holiday lists the three requirements for this holiday: 1) commemorate and pay respect to grandparents, 2) recognize the importance that older people can have on the lives of the young, and 3) give grandparents the opportunity to show love and support for their children’s children.
This holiday is celebrated in different ways. Some people throw a party for their grandparents commemorating their life and achievements. Other people merely give their grandparents a gift or craft one for them. For many other people, they celebrate with a cake.
A prominent tradition that was featured when this holiday was created is the presentation of the flower Forget Me Nots to one’s grandparents. It was particularly important to present this flower to grandparents who were living in nursing homes, or to place them on their graves if they were deceased. However, it can also be given to those who are still alive and/or living on their own or in their children’s home. Either way, it’s considered to be very important to honor the parents of your parents with some sort of ceremony. After all, without them you would not be here in the first place!