Lent Photo a Day: Celebrate

The word “holiday” is derived from the words “holy day,” so it is no surprise that many of the holidays that we celebrate, whether religious or secular, originated as religious holidays. Many holidays are celebrated in both a religious and a secular way: Christmas, for some, is a celebration of the birth of Christ and redemption for mankind; for others it is a celebration of the arrival of Santa Claus with a sackful of toys. Easter is celebrated both as the resurrection of the Christian Savior and as the arrival of spring as heralded by the Easter Bunny with his baskets of jelly beans and chocolate eggs.

But as well as the joyful holidays, we have both religious and secular holidays which are more solemn and commemorative than they are joyful. Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Martin Luther King Day are secular holidays which are observed by solemnity and reflection rather than “celebration.” Nearly every major religion has holidays which are marked by mourning and repentance rather than by joy. Christians “celebrate” Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, when Jesus was betrayed and crucified. Jews “celebrate” Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, a time of fasting, prayer, and confession. Muslims “celebrate” Ramadan, a month of fasting, charity, and self-sacrifice. Buddhists “celebrate” Ulambana, or Ancestor Day, when they make food offerings to relieve the suffering of departed ancestors. Hindus “celebrate” Mahashivaratri, a festival of Shiva spent in fasting and meditation.

One of the most mournful holiday seasons in the Christian calendar is the season of Lent, which comprises the 40 days (plus 6 Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter, including Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We celebrate, and yet we mourn. Celebration is not always joyous. It can be filled instead with self-reflection, self-sacrifice, good works, and charity toward others. This type of celebration encompasses both looking inward and examining oneself, but also reaching outward and helping one’s fellow man. This type of holiday is a time that we “observe,” rather than “celebrate.” We observe ourselves, and we observe those around us.

Even if you don’t celebrate Lent, take a moment to “celebrate” anyway. Observe. Honor. Look. Within and without. 

Celebrate.

The Holiday Birthday Dilemma

My husband’s birthday is the day after Christmas. My stepdaughter’s birthday is Independence Day. My birthday is sandwiched between my son’s birthday and Thanksgiving. The only person in our immediate family without a birthday slap up against some other celebration is my daughter, with her ha-ha-there-are-no-holidays-in-August birthday. We all have a few wrinkles due to the proximity of “our” special day to some other special day. My husband gets presents wrapped in Christmas paper. I haven’t had a birthday cake of my own in years, just a candle stuck into a piece of pumpkin pie or a rocket-shaped cake shared with my son. My stepdaughter gets a cookout for her birthday dinner every year whether she wants it or not (although the fireworks display is a nice consolation). It kind of stinks to have a birthday close to a major holiday.

But it also stinks for those of us trying to celebrate a loved one’s birthday that’s near a holiday. I struggle to find a free evening to take my husband out for a nice birthday dinner among all the other family gatherings and church services and holiday parties. I wrestle with the idea of baking a birthday cake, the leftovers of which will just sit on the counter amidst the 5 different kinds of Christmas cookies and the 6 different kinds of candy that overflowed the stockings, tempting me to commit caloric sins beyond belief. But the hardest part of all is buying him presents.

First of all, in stereotypical husband fashion, whenever he wants something, he buys it for himself. To be fair, he’s no worse about it at Christmas/birthday time than he is the rest of the year. But he’s not the type who thinks of something he’d like in September or October and says, “Hey, I don’t need this right now, I’ll just put it on my gift list.” Nope, he goes straight to amazon.com and CLICK! He doesn’t need it any more.

Second, he’s a techno-geek, so the majority of stuff on his gift list is a) expensive, or b) completely incomprehensible. B) is not a problem unless the item is sold out or back-ordered on Amazon so I have to go to a brick-and-mortar store and try to find an overworked, undertrained, and underpaid temporary holiday employee to help me find the same item. If his birthday were in May or October, I bet everything on his gift list would be in stock. But looking for it on December 18^th, along with everyone else in the known universe who waited till the last minute to do their holiday shopping, and you’re just out of luck.

And third, you have to get a whole bunch of gifts all at the same time. Since I have two young children, I have to get him gifts from them as well as from me, so (kids + me) x (birthday + Christmas) = 4 presents. Plus my sister and grandmother want gift suggestions, and I can’t just tell them “Get him X” – I have to tell them, “You could get him X, Y, or Z.” So 3 suggestions x 2 family members = 6 more ideas. Now we’re up to 10 things!! And all within a reasonable price range! It’s a good thing I have a small family.

My husband, God bless his cotton socks, doesn’t make a fuss about having his birthday close to Christmas. Whenever I ask him if he wants a separate birthday party and family Christmas gathering, he shrugs it off. The birthday cake he asks for every year is a gingerbread man – carrying a big Christmas candy cane. 

I’ve never heard him complain on the rare occasion he does get a birthday gift wrapped in Christmas paper. And when he hears me plotzing about what to get him, he tells me not to worry about it. But I do worry about it, because birthdays are special. You only get one once every year. And I want his to be special. Because HE is special.

But if I can’t quite manage to make his birthday as special as I’d like it to be, I’d say that the next best thing it to treat him as if every day were his special day. After all, he is special to me, every day.

There's a Day for That

I realize that I’ve blogged on this topic in the past, but since I saw that today is “National Mousse Day,” I decided it is time to revisit the topic. I understand that with 365 days to fill, the National Day determiners (who are they, anyway? Hallmark employees, I suppose) must get a bit desperate once they pass Day 300. But I find it hard to believe that they can’t come up with anything better than National Bavarian Cream Pie Day (November 27), National Cognac Day (June 4 and I can’t believe my husband didn’t know about that one), National Worship of Tools Day (March 11 and I can’t help wondering if that’s Tim Allen’s birthday), and National Dice Day (December 4). I may not be a highly-paid Hallmark employee, but I came up with a list of a few suggestions that I think would be better “Days” than some of the ones currently on the calendar.

National Admit Your Real Size Day

This day is pretty women-oriented, I will admit. What woman out there over the age of 30 doesn’t have a bunch of clothes in her closet that don’t fit anymore but that she can’t bring herself to give away? One day a year, we should all admit to reality and donate those too-small clothes. There are certainly enough women around – especially in this economy – who could use them.

National Cook Like Your Mother Day

Some moms may not be great cooks, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a mom out there who can’t make at least one decent meal. And chances are, she passed her recipe along to her kids. So flash back to your childhood and make that tuna casserole or meatloaf or baked mac and cheese. And thank your mom that you always had food on the table as a child. And if you didn’t always have food on the table, be thankful that you do now. And if you can, drop off some of the ingredients at a food pantry for those who don’t right now.

National Cut Your Toenails Day

This Day would have to be scheduled in the early summer, when we all start to break out the sandals and run around barefoot. Which of us hasn’t been grossed out by someone’s horribly neglected toenails at this time of year? We could all use a little reminder that a decent pedicure is in order when the warm weather rolls around.

National Learn Something New Day

It doesn’t matter what you learn about, but I think we should have one day a year when everyone comes up with some topic to research and learn a bit about. It could be anything from how to build a model rocket to the history of the Olympics to how to make tiramisu to what makes a Slinky work. It should be a topic that you find interesting but that you wouldn’t ever learn about otherwise.

National This is Not a “Day” Day

Having some kind of National “Day” on every single day, 365 days a year, is simply exhausting. So once a year, we need a break from days when we just have a non-day Day. If that seems like too much, maybe we can make this Day on February 29^th, so it’s only every four years. With apologies to Sadie Hawkins, of course.

 

But until these days get instituted on the calendar, I guess I’d better go make some mousse. It is National Mousse Day, after all.

There's a Day for That

Did you know that today (January 24) is Global Belly Laugh Day? Or that Penguin Awareness Day was last week? (I’ll admit to not knowing that penguins were, in fact, unaware.) You might have known that Talk Like a Pirate Day happens every September, but I bet you didn’t know that September also includes Be Late for Something Day (I suspect that was originally scheduled for August), Fight Procrastination Day (also originally scheduled for August) and Make Your Bed Day.

There really is a day for everything. In fact, a little bit of research results in the following list of days for January alone:
January 1: New Year’s Day (OK, this one gets a pass)
January 2: Run Up the Flagpole and See If Anyone Salutes Day
January 3: Festival of Sleep Day, Fruitcake Toss Day, and Humiliation Day (wonder if the third is directly related to the first two?)
January 4: Trivia Day
January 5: National Bird Day
January 6: Bean Day and Cuddle Up Day (ugh, not a wise combination)
January 7: Old Rock Day
January 8: Bubble Bath Day and Male Watcher’s Day (this combination could go either way, depending on the subject)
January 9: Play God Day
January 10: Peculiar People Day
January 11: Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friend’s [sic] Day (too bad National Punctuation Day isn’t until September)
January 12: Feast of Fabulous Wild Men Day and National Pharmacist Day (double whammy for those fabulous wild pharmacists!)
January 13: International Skeptics Day and Make Your Dream Come True Day (need I even say anything about the juxtaposition of these two?)
January 14: Dress Up Your Pet Day
January 15: National Hat Day
January 16: National Nothing Day

I think I’ll stop at National Nothing Day. If you haven’t gotten the point by now, you’re not going to get it: If you want to celebrate something random and nonsensical, someone else probably thought of it already and assigned it an official “Day”. You can celebrate an officially-recognized theme every single day of the year, if you like. The fact that there are holidays that even Hallmark doesn’t make cards for is mind-blowing to me.

So what is the point of all these “Days”? The point is that there is always something to celebrate. No matter what other lousy stuff may be going on in your life, there’s some excuse to be silly and to laugh and to celebrate. If you’re into food, you could celebrate ice cream sandwiches (August 2), or crown roast of pork (March 7), or pastry (December 9), or angel food cake (October 10), or even moldy cheese (October 9). Maybe you’re thankful for working people and would rather celebrate mailmen (February 4), or cosmonauts (April 12), or waiters and waitresses (May 21), or even ratcatchers (July 22). Maybe what will make you happy is celebrating something musical like kazoos (January 28), or saxophones (November 6 – sorry, Dad!), or barbershop quartets (April 11), or tubas (May 6). Or perhaps you just need something completely goofy like wiggling your toes (August 6), or hugging your cat (June 4), or rubber erasers (April 15), or butterscotch pudding (September 19).

Whatever it is that will get you out of your funk and celebrating, it’s out there. So go have yourself a good belly laugh today!! Don’t worry, you can get back to crying in a couple of days - Opposite Day is on Wednesday.

Family Holiday Traditions

With the holidays rapidly approaching (what do you mean, Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK??), the annual juggling of family traditions is at the forefront of many minds. Some families have deeply-ingrained, sacrosanct holiday traditions, others are more casual. But whatever traditions you grew up with and assumed that everyone shared, when you get married you discover differently.

Just figuring out who’s hosting Thanksgiving dinner may be a sticking point with some families. What do you do when your family always gathers at your mom’s house but your husband’s family always gathers at his Aunt Matilda’s house (which happens to be 300 miles away from your mom’s)? Do you kill yourselves having dinner at one home and then driving frenetically to the other for pie? Do you try to convince one of the families to move their celebration from Thursday to either Friday or Saturday? Do you play the newlywed card and insist that everyone come to your house?

What about timing? Are there appetizers beforehand or will that ruin everyone’s appetite? Is dinner served at 1pm or at 6pm? Do guests need to arrive late enough that they had time to watch the parade before leaving home, or do they need to leave early enough to watch the last football game in the comfort of their own living room? Do the hosts have a big enough living room to accommodate all the football fans? And are the non-fans then expected to clean the kitchen, or are they allowed to nap while the footballers lounge on the couch?

And then there’s the menu. You grew up on bread stuffing, your husband grew up on cornbread stuffing – so do you make both? Mashed potatoes or wild rice? Jellied cranberry sauce from a can or whole berry relish made from Grandma’s secret recipe? Pumpkin pie or apple pie? With whipped cream or without? Brine the turkey or baste it?

It seems like no matter what you decide on any of the above questions, someone’s not going to be happy. But then, change is hard. So sometimes it’s best to start a completely new tradition. Our family’s solution is to host Thanksgiving dinner ourselves. The troops are arriving at 1-2pm and dinner is scheduled for 4pm (assuming the turkey cooperates). The menu includes roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, jellied cranberry sauce (with the ridges from the can still in evidence), peas, squash, creamed onions, rolls, and both pumpkin and apple pie. Anyone who can’t live without a particular dish that’s not on the menu is welcome to bring it. It might not be the exact family tradition that any of us grew up with, but it’s now officially OUR family tradition. And I know that a lovely time will be had by all – because, after all, it’s family, and it’s Thanksgiving. How can it not be lovely?