Since the traditional holiday season is upon us, it might be helpful present some of the other holidays celebrated at this time of year. In addition to the ones listed here, a few more warrant elucidation:
- Free Gluten Day, December 17: Not to be confused with gluten-free day (which is rapidly becoming every day), Free Gluten Day commemorates the disimprisonment of Ernesto Gluten from a squalid cell in Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. Ernesto was confined after contending a tough, viscid, nitrogenous substance in his morning toast caused excessive flatulence. While his wife considered it the work of the Devil, Ernesto rather enjoyed it. He was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, polluting the air, and impersonating a ventriloquist.
- Boxing Day: This isn’t the traditional Boxing Day celebrated in the UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and other Commonwealth nations. This one follows the traditional Office Party. It’s the day in which you get in a boxing ring with your boss or anyone else you’ve offended — or have been offended by — at the party. The bouts typically consist of four rounds of three minutes each, unless a fight ends in a knockout.
- Hair of the Dog Day: This holiday can be celebrated any day you need it. If your morning-after headache registers 8.0 on the Richter Scale, make yourself a stiff Bloody Mary for breakfast, add extra horseradish to clear your sinuses (Uncle Leroy’s Nose Hair Perm is our favorite), and make sure you have a full roster of designated drivers for the remainder of the season.
- Do-Over Day: Like having a leap year every year, Do-Over Day permits adding a day to the calendar if one is lost to gaiety-induced amnesia. Please note: Given their proximity to Washington D.C., Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia require all those who invoke this observance to add a day’s wages to their income tax returns, even if they can’t document their working the day they lost. In non-right-to-work states, union employees pay a surcharge, equivalent to 1/366th of their annual dues.
- Bowl Week: This week is for football games played by Division III schools or lower. Local cable-access channels carry such classics as the Kellogg’s Cereal Bowl, the Campbell’s Soup Bowl, the Swiffer Dust Bowl, the Corn Cob Pipe Bowl, the California Makeup Academy Hollywood Bowl, the Chex Mix Snack Bowl, the AMF Duck Pin Bowl, and the Tidy Bowl … well, you know.
- Get a Grip O’ Your Knickers Month, December 1 – January 2: This month reminds us the Season of Peace may not be the most appropriate time to work ourselves into feverish lathers. If we can relax and appreciate the family and friends with whom we’ll surround ourselves during the holidays — if we can manage to content ourselves with what we have and what we’ve accomplished, rather than holding unrealistic expectations over our own heads — we just might enjoy ourselves.
Whatever holidays you celebrate, be careful out there.
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