Each year, fans celebrate Sept. 22 as Hobbit Day! “May the hair on your toes never fall out!”

Well, I guess if that is your thing. This day was created alongside Tolkien Week by the American Tolkien Society in 1978, to honor Tolkien’s great legacy. This holiday remains unofficial, but seems to increase in popularity with the global success of the movies.

Hobbit Day is commemorated on the birthday of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, two hobbits, and the heroes of  Tolkien’s books. Hobbits are celebrated on this day for the immeasurable courage and great feats that they achieve.

Hobbits have won the hearts of fans all around the world, and are a great role model for children because of their many positive characteristics. Hobbits are extremely loyal creatures, and nothing is more important to them than love and friendship, as shown by Frodo’s lifelong friend Samwise Gamgee.

We all have that one friend; just look around at who your friends are and see which one might be your Samwise.

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

Despite their small stature (standing between 2 and 4 feet tall) Hobbits are great adventurers and never shy away from a challenge. Above all, hobbits are fundamentally good creatures that believe that kindness will always prevail, which allows them to always stay positive in the face of adversity.

“Where there’s life there’s hope.”

What can we learn from being a hobbit and how can we better our lives trying to be more like them, especially on this fabulous day?

What can you do to celebrate?  Well do like the hobbits do have and have a great feast (often with seven meals) and share joy and merriment with people around you. You could read or reread the book, marathon watch the movies or do like the hobbits and go barefoot all day. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?” - J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit.”