Every summer holiday has one thing in common – I celebrate with a cookout. Memorial Day? Cookout. Flag Day? Cookout. My wife’s birthday falls in June, so it’s a cookout.  Indepedence Day?  Obviously.  Labor Day? Last cookout of the summer.

If you’re celebrating… anything… this summer, a cookout is the way to go. All cookouts are pretty great, but there are some things you can do to ensure that your summer festivities are extra special.

1) Repel the bugs. A fine summer day can devolve into an itchy bugfest with the onset of dusk. Setting a bottle of Off on the picnic table isn’t enough to protect your guests and your reputation as a host. Prepare your yard ahead of time with a lawn spray. You can generally get a full day of bug free living with one application.

2) Food. Cookout time is no time to worry about diets. The grill is meant to cook meat, and lots of it. Hamburgers, hot dogs, and various sausages are the preferred fare. You can supplement with salads and fruits and such, but don’t neuter your BBQ by taking away the good stuff.

3) Plan for the Weather. You can’t control the weather, but you can mitigate its effects. Consult the Farmer’s Almanac when picking the date. If you live in an area prone to late afternoon showers, move the party earlier in the day. Work around the things you can’t control.

4) Shake things up. It’s easy to plan one great cookout. Planning a string of them over several months year after year requires a little more. You can’t just do the same thing every time. Adjust the theme for each event. Aunt Betty’s 70th birthday party should feel distinctly different from your Memorial Day celebration.

5) Piñatas. If you’ve got kids at the party, you can’t go wrong with a piñata. Just remember two important things: Make sure you’ve got a video camera and keep out of the way. Trust me on this one.

“That’s the day the pool opens,” said a group of kids visiting the U.S. Capital, when they were asked what Memorial Day was.

It may be true that the holiday was deliberately placed at the beginning of summer — one theory is that this time of year was chosen because, by then, all regions of the U.S. would have plenty of flowers to decorate soldiers’ graves. But summer-kickoff events like pool openings and barbecues sometimes overshadow the real reason for Memorial Day. (Not that a barbecue isn’t a great way to celebrate.)

So how do we reclaim Memorial Day as a patriotic occasion AND have fun? Here are some ideas:

Take part in the National Moment of Remembrance. At 3pm on Memorial Day, pause for one minute of silence to honor the war dead. “In this shared remembrance, we connect as Americans,” says remember.gov, where you can find more information. Ask your family and friends to gather for this moment. You can keep it very simple (remember.gov says you might want to ring a bell three times) or organize other activities around it.

Kids will probably be impressed by the minute of silence, so rare in our world. To reinforce the theme, show them VA kids, which has online coloring, games, and other activities, including one that lets them design their own military medal, for Memorial Day.

If you’re on your own, Public Affairs at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey has some suggestions for you: Join other singles for a theme potluck. If you’re not feeling that friendly, stay home and watch a patriotic movie. (When you get hungry, they say, go crash the singles potluck.)

Anything you can do in the spirit of Memorial Day will help it be more than just another long weekend.

Memorial Day is a day set aside to honor those who have served our country with pride and dignity and for those whose sacrifices provided us with the freedoms we enjoy today. Memorial Day (at first called Decoration Day) is always commemorated on the last Monday in May. It is an important day for all citizens to be grateful for the legacy that many brave men and women have left behind.

As to why Memorial Day came to be celebrated on the last Monday of May- on May 5, 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, Decoration Day was established by the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in order for the war dead to have their graves decorated with flowers in remembrance of their sacrifices for their country. It was Major General John A. Logan who chose the last Monday in May to be Decoration Day because flowers were in bloom all over the nation and therefore easily accessible to place on graves.

The very first Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30, 1868. On that day, flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers. A speech was made at Arlington Cemetery by General James Garfield. Once the speech was finished, 5,000 people decorated the more than 20,000 graves of soldiers buried there.

The south would not honor those who died in the war on the designated holiday until the end of World War I. At this time, the meaning of Memorial Day shifted- it became a day not to honor those who died in the Civil War only but Americans who lost their lives in any war.

The very first state to recognize the newly named Memorial Day was New York and that was thanks to President Lyndon Johnson. On Memorial Day across the country flags remain at half-staff all morning until noon time. They are then raised to the top.

The Memorial Day flower is the red poppy. The custom of wearing red poppies on Memorial Day was first started in 1915 by Moina Michaels who felt it was a fitting way to honor the war dead.

Memorial Day Quotes

“For love of country they accepted death …” -James A. Garfield
“We come, not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them.”-Francis A. Walker