My Anti-Holiday

As previously stated, I told you I had a love/hate relationship with holidays. On one hand, holidays celebrate religious days, remind us of important events, or simply give us reasons to consume large quantities of beer. That's the good side. On the other end of the spectrum, holidays can be over-commercialized, made up, pointless days that celebrate absolutely nothing. Today, I will be happy to present to you my least favorite holidays.

6. Washington's Birthday: With all due respect to George Washington, I find this holiday quite silly. I completely agree that this should be a day of observance and that our children should be taught the importance of this fine gentleman. But in no way should this be a federal holiday. Let me get this straight, a guy that reluctantly became our first president receives a federal holiday and I don't get any mail just because he was born. Sorry, I fail to find any reasoning that makes sense.

5. Columbus Day: You have got to be kidding me on this one. Here is a guy that accidentally "discovered" this country after having thought he was in India. Yet another federal holiday is given away and yet another day I can't get my mail. Again, I fail to find how this makes any kind of sense.

4. Groundhog Day: The only good thing to have ever come from this completely pointless holiday is an incredibly funny movie that I likened to all of my days on deployment. It's the same day over, and over, and over, and over again. The day is so completely pointless that I can't believe I am even giving it recognition here. We're supposed to believe that a flippin' groundhog is able to predict when Spring will be here. Well I guess that makes sense when you see how accurate the triple Doppler meteorologists are. Silly, stupid, and pointless.

3. New Year's Eve: While this may technically not be a holiday, it is treated as one. Back in my wilder days, I was known to drink a few beers and partake in a party or two. Passing up a party really wasn't an option. But I always found it extremely difficult to find the sense in going out the night before New Year's Day, paying an obscenely high cover charge at a bar/hotel/wherever, paying triple price for drinks, and celebrating something that happens every year like it's a surprise. Now, if New Year's Day didn't come every year and kind of snuck up on us as a surprise, that might be a little different. But the way this is celebrated and the crowds that come out for this I find extremely childish, pointless, and silly. And now that my son's birthday is on New Year's Day, it gives me a reason to turn down requests to go out. Thank you Abe.

2. Christmas: That's right, Christmas. Yes, it was on my list of favorite holidays. But I also hate this holiday. I'm going to sound really preachy for a second so be ready. I love the fact this holiday is about giving. But I'm pretty sure that Jesus doesn't expect you stand in line outside of Best Buy at 4 in the morning the day after Thanksgiving so that you can get the best deal on that Wii for your spoiled kid that thinks the PS2 is too old and outdated. Every year I see the very worst out of our society during this holiday season. Greed, anger, frustration, gluttony, and impatience all show their ugly heads. This holiday has become an over-commercialized day in which people expect to be given the biggest and best gift possible. Jesus has been completely removed. My son's public school cannot sing Christmas songs that talk about what the season is supposed to be about. They have to stick to "holiday songs" so that nobody gets offended. Sorry, but I have a problem with that. I could go on for a while, but I will stop there.

1. Valentine's Day (aka Hallmark Day): I just love the kind of holiday in which Hallmark and all of the jewelery stores try and make me feel guilty if I don't go buy my beautiful wife something expensive and give it to her on this day. Forget the other 363 days out of the year. If you don't do it on this day, you suck and you should have your testicles chopped off. Oh, and is there anything expected of women? No. If you pay attention, it's a day in which they try and make the guy show how much he loves the girl. It's a completely stupid holiday and I have never once celebrated it. Sure, I might get my wife a card or simply say "I love you", but I absolutely refuse to give any recognition to this day. I refuse to let Hallmark dictate when I should show my wife love and when I should buy her a present. You want to know the best part of all of this, my wife agrees with me completely. She has never once expected anything on this day. And she shouldn't. This day needs to be removed from the calendar and never heard from again. But then again, if we did that Hallmark might go out of business.