Kiss And Makeup Day

Kiss

August 25 celebrates the end of a grudge. After an argument, it’s easy not to forgive. It’s easy to stay angry but, remember, it was Gandhi who said that only the strong can forgive, and the weak can never. Exercise your strength by forgiving — just kiss and make up! The holiday was created by a woman named Jacqueline Milton to re-examine old relationships and find ways to repair them. All this is to say that today is the best day to bury the hatchet!

 

The History of Kiss And Makeup Day

Kissing and making up — the two essential steps in a relationship after any disagreement or feud with any friend, family member, or your partner! The history of kissing and the history of making up are two separate and interesting tales.

The first texts (and we mean ancient scriptures, not on your iPhone!) that mention kissing date back to 1500 B.C. The people who wrote them lived in what we today call India. At the time, they would frequently rub noses to express romance — at some point, someone’s face slipped, and the joys of kissing were discovered! In 300 B.C., kissing spread out of India, carried by Alexander the Great’s conquering soldiers. Soon, it was a worldwide phenomenon!

Roman missionaries were sent out across Europe to spread the word on kissing — with their own lips. They even differentiated the types of kisses back then, from the ‘osculum’ (friendship kiss) and the ‘basium’ (romantic lip-to-lip kiss) to what would later be known as the French kiss! Kisses became an extremely important part of cultures, so much so that laws were passed around proper kissing, and kisses were sometimes used to validate contracts in the absence of writing and reading abilities.

The popularity of kissing died out in England around the 1660s, either due to restrictive church laws or the Great Plague of London. Of course, it would become popular as a gesture of friendship again, along with the handshake. Throughout the next few centuries, kissing became the act we know it to be today. However, kissing was very restricted in Hollywood for much of the 20th century, though some films, like “The Kiss”, got away with it.

There have also been many famous broken feuds and grudges throughout the ages — whether or not they end in a kiss! One well-known example is the Yorks v.s. the Lancastrians when they feuded for the English crown in the 15th century. Eventually, the war this feud gave way to (the War of Roses) was ended when Henry IV married Elizabeth of York, thus uniting the two families — with a kiss!