A Great Idea

Over the weekend I spent the night in Kiev with Nadia. (Well, Sunday night, rather.) Sunday was March 8, Women's Day, which is a big holiday in Ukraine. It's kind of like Mother's Day, but bigger, and it's for all the girls. It's awfully nice. In all this dreary Marchness, booths of flowers popped out everywhere over the weekend, sporting carnations, roses, irises, daffodils, jonquils, and my mom's favorite-- hyacinths. The colors were a welcome treat against the muddy bleakness.

I went to the Women's Day celebration at Nadia'a youth group with her, and it was so special. The guys in the youth group decorated the room, set up tables, lit candles, and laid out chocolate, apples, cookies, and drinks. They had taken nice photos of the girls and hung them around the room. They wore funny outfits and sang songs, showed slideshows they had prepared, and acted out blonde jokes that had us all rolling. It was great. I don't even know anyone in the youth group but Nadia and another sweet gal named Sasha, but I still felt very honored and special. It was like Valentines Day, only you didn't have to be "attached" to anybody :)

As a girl, I guess I felt it was special that people would recognize being feminine as a good thing. It's not that girls are better or boys are better...it's that we're different and there are unique and wonderful things about both. Personally, I really enjoy being a girl...but I find that being appreciated for my feminine qualities makes me appreciate guys for their masculine ones all the more.

I think we need to start this holiday in the States. It could replace Valentine's Day. I think about the girls in the youth group from home and how much it would mean to them to be "honored" in a general "attention to all, intention on none" way, with chocolate...

I, at least, went away with a fresh reminder-- "Oh. I'm valuble!" :)

Oh, and just so you know, there's a Men's Day too, in February I think. Somehow we missed that. I suppose guys don't really enjoy flowers and heart shaped candles the way we do :)