personal holiday

A personal holiday is the celebration of a significant event in your life. Your birthday is the most common personal holiday, and is often celebrated with friends and family, using standard ceremonies which in North America include a birthday cake with candles and the receiving of gifts.
A common shared personal holiday is the anniversary of a wedding. Less commonly celebrated shared personal holidays are "our first sex day" and even "day we met day".
There are personal holidays which commemorate more solemn occasions, such as that shared by siblings on the anniversary of a parent's death.
The largest (and largely unacknowledged) group of personal holidays are more private ones. These include "day I quit smoking/drinking day" and celebrations of life-changing events such as "first orgasm day" and "spiritual awakening day" (which may, for some, coincide).
Widely shared, but even less acknowledged, are anniversaries of negative personal events, like "shot my mouth off day" or "caught cheating day". Whether they are admitted to or not, these negative personal holidays require their own forms of ritual remembrances, such as throwing a good drunk.

Ping: Why weren't you at work yesterday?
Pang: Oh, I took a personal holiday. It was "First Time I Saw the Grand Canyon Day"

personal holiday by Pooleside June 27, 2016