If Holidays Were Realistic

As of lately, our country seems to be in search of using everyday language which is deemed politically correct. I’ve always found that terminology to be a bit ironic, because if there’s a group of people I’d consider looking to as an absolute last resort as a moral compass, it’s politicians.

This attitude of being politically correct seems to particularly show itself during the holidays. We are constantly being told what we can and cannot say, because we don’t want to offend anyone. The line of thought here seems to be “Well, I don’t celebrate this day and it’s not about me. Therefore, I am offended by it.” If that’s the case, then why aren’t we offended when we get invited to someone’s birthday party? Why is it that on that day, we can choose to just be happy for someone else? Although, if we really looked at birthdays, I think we’d realize that we’ve been going about those all wrong too. If anything, on that day we should be celebrating the mother.

“Tommy, take off that stupid hat! Today’s not about you. Now, go hug your mother and tell her that you’re sorry.”

But we can’t do that. If you take toys, candy and attention away from a little kid he would just lay there crying and babbling incoherently and there is not a more realistic depiction of the role that that little snot nosed kid played on his day of birth than that.

The root of the problem is a self-centered attitude. Again, it’s this thinking that “I don’t celebrate this day and I couldn’t just be openly happy for someone else so “bah humbug!” Although, this statement in itself is reference to a holiday novel.

If someone came up to me on April 23^rd and enthusiastically greeted me by saying “Hey man, Happy Avocado Day!” I wouldn’t think “Ummmm, the purchasing and consumption of avocados does not line up with my personal set of beliefs.” No. I’d run a hand through my hair and go “Geez! That’s today??!! We need to get me an avocado now!” I’ve taken it upon myself to come up with descriptions of various holidays throughout the year that will allow us all to participate in that day’s festivities in friendly, unified way.

First up, we have Valentine’s Day. Just as a reminder for all of the men out there, this holiday falls on February 14^th every year. This holiday was created by the greeting card, flower and candy industries because they haven’t gotten inside the consumer’s pocket since Christmas. On February 14^th, couples are blissful and happy while singles are bitter and anger. But take heart bachelors and bachelorettes, because for pretty much every other day of the year, that mood ring shines in their favor. Being single on Valentine’s Day is a lot like being British on the Fourth of July. Somewhere in the world, there’s a party going on that you’re not invited to, but deep down everyone knows that you have the classiest, sexiest voice that they’ve ever heard.

Slightly west of jolly old England, we move to Ireland for the March 17^th celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. Simply put, this is a day that we’ve set aside to recognize and honor short, clever men who are constantly forgetting where they put things. This day has also given many people an excuse to get unmercifully inebriated. It’s truly a poor reflection on the people of Ireland and is a similar assumption to thinking that everyone in New Jersey is a buff, tattooed meathead with a two syllable word vocabulary limit and that their license plates would be more accurate if they read The Guido State.

A little over a week later. On March 27^th is Easter Sunday. This was the one day each year that I became more and more convinced that, at some point in his life, my father was on body dismemberment and disposal duty for the Irish mob, because he hid Easter baskets as if he thought that there’d be legal ramifications if someone were to find them.. This day took the man who is partially responsible for bringing the handsome hunk of hotness that is myself, in to this world and made him an unenthusiastic Katy Perry karaoke participant as after an hour of unsuccessfully searching for our Easter baskets, my brother and I would walk around the hose pointing at stuff and my dad would say “You’re hot. Now you’re cold. Over there…..Yes!......No!” So, my advice don’t even hide anything. Tell your kids that there’s candy under the dirty dishes in the sink or beneath the pile of laundry in the bathroom. You’ll keep your children busy and get a lot of work done in the process.

Next on the calendar, we head in to April and stop on the very first day. April 1^st, or April Fool’s Day is the one day each year where little white lies and emotionally, if not physically harmful pranks are supposed to be tolerated provided that at the conclusion of whatever the person says or does comes the enthusiastic punchline “April Fools!” A documentary was made showing what April Fool’s Day would look like in the dystopian societies of a Donald Trump led America. To see what this holiday might look like in the future, go rent The Purge.

Shortly after we’ve all eaten our fill of tacos and reluctantly put our lips around a bottle of Corona, we come to May 8^th and Mother’s Day. For me, this day was the culmination of having spent the other 364 days practicing walking around and saying “wow, how interesting!” in a tone that conveyed some sense of believability, because I was sure to spend the entire day trudging around an art museum repetitiously  answering the question “How does this one make you feel?” Angry! It makes me absolutely furious. Not because I feel as though looking at art is a waste of time. No, the rise of abstract art has driven me bananas due to the fact that these artistic acid trip art pieces sell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars and they look very similar to the work I did in my elementary school art class and received nothing more than a C+ and a twenty minute lecture about effort.

In the United States, the next big holiday is the Fourth of July celebration marking the nations’ birth. We Americans celebrate this day by partaking in the two activities that the rest of the world knows us best for, eating lots of food and blowing stuff up.

The unofficial end of summer and return to school for many students is marked by Labor Day weekend. The mindset of this holiday seems to be that the working class got together and said “we’ve been doing a lot of work, we deserve some time off.” Not So Fun Fact for you, the average American currently carries $8,000 in credit card debt, $10,000 in auto loan debt and $25,000 in student loan debt and owes $100,000 on their mortgage, but yeah, let’s totally shut down the economy for the day. With the economic deficit where it’s at in this country I believe that the most honest way to celebrate this day is to head down to your nearest college or university, find the student in the library writing the 10-page paper on Abraham Lincoln who has mustered up the will to type the words “Abraham Lincoln was the….” And tell him “You’ve been working really hard, why don’t you spend the rest of the day playing Ultimate Frisbee on the quad.”

On October 10, we celebrate Columbus Day and remember events that lead to the most intense “ask for directions” argument in recorded history. Christopher Columbus was looking for a route to China, but unfortunately due to some construction going on in the Indian Ocean was rerouted to the Bahamas. Here’s how I recommend you celebrate this day:

1.      Make plans with a friend that leaves to the east of you

2.      Drive to the house of a friend who lives to the west of you

3.      Despite their understandable confusion upon your arrival, insist that this was your plan all along

4.      Go all throughout the home of the horrified hostess stealing a bunch of their things

5.      It is preferable to do this on a day that you are not feeling too well so that everyone living in the house becomes sick

6.      Prior to leaving the house, turn and say “This is mine now.”  

As the leaves begin to die, so do my hopes for the future generation of children turning this country around. Next on our list is Halloween on October 31^st. This is a night where kids dress really weird and pretend to be someone they’re not. For most people, this practice stops once they enter high school because they claim to have “outgrown” such a childish activity. Or as one teen puts it “Doing the same thing every second of every day is lame and exhausting.”

October shifts to November and we soon arrive at Thanksgiving Day on November 24^th. This is a day when large families get together and engage in a handful of cumbersome cross-table conversations, because whoever was left in charge of the seating arrangements is apparently an absolute moron. The sounds of the kitchen soon resemble a food-fueled opening of the New York Stock Exchange. Everyone at the table earns valuable job experience as an assembly line worker, because the ratio of time spent passing something to someone versus time spent actually eating is about as even as the score of the end of the season hockey game back when I was a Squirt and the kids didn’t know how to lose with grace and the dads didn’t know how to dial it down a notch.

Hanukkah is a celebration that lasts eight days and really confuses Jewish boys between the ages of one and eight with a birthday that falls between December 24^th and January 1^st. During this time, families willingly increase their chances of having a house fire by roughly 12.5% each night.

As we continue to expect more from our children, we continue to confuse the crap out of them. This is made very apparent by the way in which we celebrate Christmas on December 25^th. 364 days out of the year if an old bearded guy tells me that he has presents for me in his magically powered transportation vehicle, I’m supposed to run like hell. However, during this special time of year, I am specifically instructed to leave dairy products and baked goods out all night for some guy who has apparently been given the code to the garage and is only interested in having me sit on his lap and tell him what I want.

Lastly on our list, I have chosen to couple together New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day wherein a day that people promise themselves they are going to get in shape and change their life around is ironically preceded by a night most people spend their time getting way less sleep than they should and absolutely destroying their liver.     

So, I look forward to our first unified holiday celebration and I’d like to close with the reminder that the beer companies halfheartedly give you at the end of their commercials to please celebrate responsibly.