Cherry Snow Day

"Do you see now, Dorithie, why we call it the Cherry Snow?" Mildred asked, holding the child's hand tightly in her own. Little fingers reached out to catch the petals drifting by on the wind. The giggle that bubbled up from Dorithie's lips, the widening of her little eyes, told Mildred exactly how Dorithie felt about her very first Springish holiday.

Cherry Snow Day is a holiday that celebrates the blossoming of the cherry trees in the Spring Kingdom. In many Springish settlements, the holiday includes festival gatherings, food, and gift-exchanging. Celebrations are held annually on the first Saturday of the Night.

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History

The First Snows

The first Cherry Snow was held near the end of the Era of the Dragons, making it one of the oldest Springish traditions. The story goes that humanoid communities under the Dragons of the Rock were given a day of leave to be taken when the cherry trees began to snow. Accounts of later traditions indicate that the leave was to begin once the first cherry blossom fell.
Scholars have yet to determine when a simple day off became codified as an annual celebration. However, various accounts from first century AD refer to Cherry Snow Day as an official day upon which festivities were to be held. Accounts noted that festivities were to include the exchanging of food items made from cherry blossoms.

Elemental Era

During the reign of the Earth Element, the holiday was solidified in terms of both culture and legality.

Margery the Grounded, founding wizard-king of the Earth Element, decreed that the holiday was to be a day of rest in 38 AD. In doing so, they established that it would be observed the first Saturday of the Night, rather than whenever the first cherry blossom fell. Later, Margery's successor Valentine the Flighty decreed that the day was to be a day of peace as well as a day of rest.

Surprisingly, all but a few of the wizard-kings that followed over the next few centuries honored these decrees.
The first wizard-king that tried to flout them, Everard the Enthused, was deposed the same day. The last, Haverford the Cruel, known for starting the Element Wars, was assassinated two weeks afterwards.

Though the era began with the holiday being a mostly informal and independent tradition, it grew rapidly in the following decades, truly gaining momentum once it was endorsed by the Element. During this time, festivities evolved from small celebrations held amongst family and friend units to communal affairs that often took the form of festivals.
These festivals or community celebrations would often, in smaller communities, include a potluck in which attendees would bring food items to share. A great deal of pride was taken in the preparation of cherry-blossom-based dishes to share at these events. Recipes were closely held secrets handed down generation to generation.

Primary Related Location

Spring Kingdom