It’s fairly common to get two holidays in a row – after all, each day has an eve before, and for Christmas and New Year’s, they are celebrated.  Three, is far less so — although we Americans tend to stretch holidays in their weekends, only one day is Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, etc. But this week, we have four, count ‘em, FOUR legitimate, actual holidays in a row!  Madness!

Here’s my breakdown:

Sunday.  Valentine’s Day.

I’m not really a Valentine’s lover or hater.  I consider myself Valentine’s Ambivalent.  While flowers and candy are great, do you really need a specific, planned day to tell the person in your life you feel shmooshy about them?  Shouldn’t you do that whenever the shmooshy feeling overcomes you?  You could be thinking, “I’m madly in love with this guy/girl/frog/piece of garden statuary, but its only August.  Guess I should wait 6 months to declare it.”

Doesn’t mean I’d say no to a Whitman’s sampler on February 14^th.  But on February 15^th, its half price!

Monday.  President’s Day

Day off work!  In England, they have bank holidays that create these three-day weekends.  In America, we feel the need to give those holidays names and specific purposes.   But other than celebrating the various birthdays of founding fathers, who much like Canadian hockey players, seem to have all been born in January or February, as far as I can tell the only real use for this day is to purchase discounted mattresses and vehicles (and this year, since its Feb. 15^th, discounted valentines candy).

This takes us directly into…

Tuesday.  Mardi Gras.

This year, the candy-filled debauchery that began on Valentines and was briefly suspended while we purchased new mattresses on President’s Day carries over into the complete gluttony and bacchanalia of Mardi Gras.  Traditionally a day when, before beginning lent, you gorged yourself on those things you would be forgoing for the next forty days.  Now, it’s an excuse to drink excessively and get beads in competitive flashing contests.  I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to forgo drinking OR competitive flashing in the next forty days.  But it’s a fun party.  And it’s too bad that those of us outside of Louisiana don’t have this day off work.  Or more importantly, the next one…

Wednesday.  Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday is the Catholic version of this holiday (where the faithful atone in church and have their foreheads marked with ash), we Protestants just call it the first day of Lent.  I like to call it “Hangover Day.”  The day you affirm that you will abstain from indulgence.  You will make this commitment, to purify yourself.  Because, considering the way you feel the morning after Mardi Gras, You Will Never EVER, eat/drink/do the electric slide like that again!

I hope you all are enjoying your holiday week, and now if you’ll excuse me, the television is telling me it is my last chance to get a good deal on a Serta mattress…

Happy Reading Everyone!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 6:26 pm and is filed under Writer's life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.