Happy HumpDay Holidays

Happy Holidays from HumpDay!!

The Holidays with HumpDay?

In honor of the holiday season, HumpDay has compiled a holiday themed newsletter with interesting facts to make you rethink the holidays and get you over the holiday hangover. Happy holidays from the HumpDay family to all of you!

World Cultures

Christmas is a holiday celebrated all across the world and even though the holiday is synonymous with presents and candy canes in the United States, other countries have very different ways to celebrate the holiday. Below are some of the most interesting Christmas traditions from around the world.

Austria

While St. Nicholas rewards boys and girls for good behavior, Austrian children also have to worry about his polar (pun intended) opposite, Krampus. Krampus is a beast-like holiday demon that scares children and punishes kids who misbehave. He is said to capture naughty children in a sack and kidnap them so they will never be seen again. Young men in Austria dress up as Krampus on the first week of December and roam the streets frightening children and clattering bells.

Philippines

The Giant Lantern Festival (Ligligan Parul Sampernandu) is held each year on the Saturday before Christmas Eve in the city of San Fernando, the “Christmas Capital of the Philippines”. Eleven villages compete to create giant kaleidoscope like paper lanterns illuminated with electric bulbs or candle light. The brightly lit and colorful lanterns can be as big as 20 feet across.

Sweden

In a town called Gävle in Sweden, a 13 metre (43 feet) tall goat statue is erected every year to mark the beginning of advent. Beginning in 1966, the residents of the Swedish town began a tradition of trying to burn down the statue in their town square while city officials try to stop them. In the first 50 years of the tradition, the town successfully burned down the giant goat statue 29 times while being thwarted 31 times.

Venezuela

Love Christmas, but think it could be improved by a little roller-blading? Every Christmas Eve in the city of Caracas, residents head to church in the early morning but, for reasons known only to them, they do so on roller skates. This unique tradition is so popular that roads across the city are closed to cars so that people can skate to church safely.

Business

Hatchimals, Cabbage Patch Kids, Tickle Me Elmo, each have been the “It” toy of holiday season. But how do toys become so popular that they insight riots in the aisle of toy stores nationwide?

The journey to becoming the hot toy of the holidays begins in January when the toy industry begins holding trade shows for new toys that will be launched in the upcoming year. Representatives from major toy stores (formerly Toys R Us) attend these trade shows looking to identify the next years toy trends (The hot toy trends for 2018 included S.T.E.M. focused toys and Mini Collectables).

Once the biggest toy retailers believe that they know what toys kids will want, they select a handful of toys and begin an aggressive marketing campaign to sell the toys to kids and parents alike. Now more than ever, retailers are using social media to create hype around toys, educate consumers, and boost sales. For instance, a video of a kid screaming in excitement after unwrapping a toy can convince parents that the toy is desirable and make them want to buy the toy for their kids so they can record a similar reaction.

In the end, not all of the toys become best sellers and retailers’ predictions are sometimes off the mark but, the toys that sweep the nation and start brawls and stampedes are all the product of clever marketing and careful planning.

Hottest Toys of 2018

Secret History Behind Cabbage Patch Kids

Health & Well-Being

New year, new you. While making your 2019 new years resolutions, consider taking a new approach to help you accomplish your goals. Currently, 80% of people abandon their new year’s resolutions by the second week of February but, with proper planning you can make your life changes stick.

Most new years resolutions are general and vague. “Get in shape”. “Save Money”. “Travel More”. But those types of resolutions are not easily measurable and create no real call to action. Rather than ending your resolution process with these high level goals you should break each of those goals down in to smaller objectives that build up to the overall goal. For instance, “Get in shape” can be comprised of smaller and more manageable objectives like “Get a gym membership”, “Create a meal plan” and “go to the gym twice a week”.

Next, each of the objectives should have a time constraint on it to help you know if your resolution is on or off track. You should look at each objective and determine when you expect to accomplish that goal and hold yourself to those deadlines.

Lastly, you should regularly review your performance and determine how you are progressing toward your goal. For example, you should schedule 30 minutes every two weeks to review how many objectives you completed by asking “Did I get my gym membership” or “Did I get to the gym at least twice this week”. Over time, you may need to update your goals, expectations, and deadlines.

By having measurable and timely objectives you can focus on short term goals that will eventually lead you to accomplishing your big picture resolutions.

This Week in History

On Christmas day in 1776, George Washington lead 5,400 troops across the icy Delaware river into Trenton, New Jersey to conduct a sneak attack on an unsuspecting German force who were celebrating Christmas. The American forces captured over 1,000 enemy soldiers while only suffering 3 casualties. This daring attack was immortalized in 1851 by Emanuel Leutze in his oil painting entitled Washington Crossing the Delaware.

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