 |
|
|
On Holidays
by Robert Drake
One may notice that I often make joking reference to made up holidays. I even include a list of the (mostly made-up) holidays I celebrate. My obsession with holidays is partly my shtick, partly an idiosyncrasy, and partly a section of an overarching critique which I present here in all its unintelligible glory. Some have suggested I use holidays in an allegorical way to demonstrate a philosophical point, but I think they’re just being gloomy.
To appropriately analyze holidays one must categorize, group, dissect, and thoroughly over think every possible celebration to have ever been participated in by man…or simply say what one hates and then arbitrarily list these things while creating some BS reason why….your choice.
There are multiple classifications of holidays. The first of these are the Weekend Holidays. Labor Day, Memorial Day, President’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Columbus Day and Veteran’s Day are all weekend holidays. Why? Because they make weekends longer. It’s not that the days are without meaning, but they, as Memorial Day most successfully demonstrates, are memorials, not holidays. Perhaps they would best be named Weekend/Memorial holidays. Either way they are not days of celebration; they are not holidays. Of course this brings up a side topic.
What is a holiday? To a true Drakonian, a holiday is a day of enjoyment. This does not necessarily mean parties (that sure does help though), but rather days in which you do something different from every other day. I suppose some individuals do something special on the Weekend Holidays, but I don’t. They may participate in a memorial on these days, but they do not seek enjoyment.
So what other types of holidays are there? Another important category of holidays are the religious occasions. These are holidays only for those who celebrate them. To any good, over-secularized Drakonian, religious holidays are noteworthy only if they mean celebrations or presents.
Are there any holidays I like? Of course, but that’s not this paragraph. What are the most loathsome holidays in existence? The Corporate Holidays. Many of these days were originally True Holidays or Memorial/Weekend Holidays that got taken way beyond what they should have become. Valentine’s Day is here. It shall get special treatment later. Other days that come here are Halloween, Father’s Day, and Mother’s Day.
The final category is True Holidays. St. Patrick’s Day, New Year’s, and Independence Day. These are days that fully fulfill the requirements of a good holiday. No one cares if you celebrate them or not, if you do celebrate them you can do so in whatever way you wish, there are no required gifts or cards or traditions that are taken even remotely seriously and, most of all, any celebration of these holidays is directed towards enjoyment and pleasure.
Let’s recap for a second. What types of holidays are there again? Weekend Holidays: these aren’t real holidays just days off which makes them awesome, but still not holidays. Religious Holidays: whatever works for you. Corporate Holidays: the bane of any true holiday connoisseur. True Holidays: This is where the party is at. (Hopefully literally)
So let’s go over my holidays: Why I celebrate them, how I celebrate them, and why they are better than your holidays.
New Year’s Day (January 1st)
You’re either drinking, watching a ball drop, or writing resolutions. If you aren’t doing any of these you’re probably doing something awesome…or not. No one cares. This is one of the True Holidays. It is all about the individual taking the New Year by storm…or drizzle. You get a day off to rule the world. New Year’s Day has danced between being a Corporate Holiday and a True Holiday, but in the end New Year’s is about enjoyment and that’s why I celebrate it.
Lincoln Had a Badass Top Hat Day(2nd Monday in February)
President’s Day is a Weekend Holiday. No one celebrates President’s Day and no one cares. Our culture doesn’t have living heroes any more, so we need to really pump up the dead ones. Since President’s Day tries hard, but fails I’ve decided to celebrate Lincoln Had a Badass Top Hat Day. Why? Cause he had a badass top hat. That is unarguable. Who doesn’t want to take a boring weekend holiday and make it a day about the most amazing top hat this world has ever seen. Was Lincoln a pretty cool dude? Probably…sure...I’ll be the first to give him that, but lots of people were pretty cool. How many were cool and wore such a badass top hat….Exactly.
St. Patrick’s Day 2 Priori (14th of February)
Let’s get this very clear. I hate St. Valentine’s Day. It is the epitome of what a holiday gone bad can become. It has a ridiculous amount of cultural expectations associated with it. It requires expenditure to be celebrated. Failing to celebrate it automatically makes you either a sad lonely girl-less weirdo or a really sucky boyfriend/husband. It’s sad because Valentine’s Day probably had a good start; a day to celebrate passion and fun. Now it’s a day to pay off your local interests for another 24 hours of not sleeping on the couch. It has come to represent the feminizing of the country. It is anathema.
But this isn’t really about Valentine’s Day is it? Nope. This is about St. Patrick’s Day 2 Priori. Why 2? Why Priori? 2 Because it’s the second St. Patrick’s Day. Yes I know it comes before St. Patrick’s Day 1, but it’s in order of awesomeness not time. It is the second most awesome St. Patrick’s Day around. It’s priori because St. Patrick’s Day 2 is too awesome to only be one day.
I have replaced V---------‘s Day with a day no one cares if or how you celebrate it, but if you do celebrate it St. Patrick’s Day 2 is all about how every one in your life either should love you or love you more than they already do. You are awesome and should probably wear green to show solidarity with that King of Holidays just a month and 3 days away. St. Patrick’s Day 2 Priori replaces a corporate holiday with a true holiday. Break out the Guinness and drink to a holiday that doesn’t take you into a florist shop. I celebrate this day with a card featuring the official St. Patrick’s Day 2 Symbol.
St. Patrick’s Day 2 Posteri (15th of February)
This day is just to rub it in the face of anyone who celebrates that other holiday. You probably should only celebrate this if you are willing to take the holiday battle to the front line. Only a Knight of the True Holiday can celebrate St. Patrick’s Day 2 Posteri amid a world surrounded by heathen Valentinians.
Best Day Ever of Prophecy (12th of March)
For me BDEoP is the first gift giving holiday of the year. Should you celebrate this day? Yes, but not on the 12th of March. Best Day Ever of Prophecy is a celebration of the best times you’ve had with your friends/family/acquaintances/servants. My Best Day Ever of Prophecy was the 12th of March 2005. Was yours? Not likely, but find a Best Day Ever and make it a legend with much celebration. Why give gifts at the end of the year? Give a present to honor all the awesome times that make life and holidays worth living through. Take the holiday from the calendar and return it to the will to celebrate the eternal joke. A secondary benefit is being able to give gifts in the off-season, which is far more convenient.
ST. PATRICKS DAY (17th of March)
Oh yes! St. Patrick’s Day. I am not Irish, but I am the world’s biggest defender of St. Patrick’s Day. This is the King of Holidays. Even better…the next day is St. Urho’s day. That makes the 17th of March the vortex of awesome. St. Patrick’s Day is the definition of a holiday dedicated to enjoyment. I don’t need to write too much here. If you are a Drakonian you already know how cool St. Patrick’s Day is.
St. Urho’s Day (18th of March)
A few guys actually made up this holiday to make fun of St. Patrick’s Day. Right on! These guys made up Saint Urho who defended Finland from the grasshoppers so the vintners could have a good harvest (or something like that). I love it. St. Urho’s Day is card-worthy. It’s kind of weird to make up holidays, but I love it…
Vernal Equinox (20th of March)
This is what I call my birthday. Birthdays should be up there for the most important holidays and mine is. For me it is all about enjoyment, but of a pseudo-spiritual kind. It is a day of quiet introspection to see where you life is going…and to buy neato birthday presents. Mine happens to be on the Vernal Equinox (some years) so I took the liberty of giving it a badass name.
Walpurgis Night (1st of May)
Foreign holiday that has a cool name. I’m totally celebrating it. I used to know what it was actually suppose to be about, but whatever it is its probably not as awesome as what I’m gonna turn this day into. I might make it a day of constant video games or Dom Perignon tasting or a wine cheese extravaganza. Something awesome.
Powers That Be Day (14th of May)
Props to the mother. Maybe send some cash? As much as I hate Father’s Day and Mother’s day it’s not because they don’t deserve their due. They do. (love that). Mom gets Power’s That Be Day and maybe a phone call. Dinner perhaps? Even I have some obligations and this takes care of that hopefully with some home-cooking. (hopefully not actually, but you get the point.)
Towelownia-Shitownia Armistice Day (22nd of May)
Another day celebrating times with friends/family/acquaintances/servants. Who doesn’t celebrate that time you kicked someone off a bed so you could claim their half resulting in a war between nations that eventually resulted in an uneasy truce.
Best Day Ever of Prophecy 2(June 12th)
Yep another friends/family/acquaintances/servants day. Three is the bare minimum. Celebrate the good times…with good times. It’s the only fitting tribute.
He Powers That Be Day (June 18th)
Father’s day without the Sears tool special and lame television adds.
Paradisial Celebration (June 26th-June 30th)
When I left a place I hated to go to a place I liked. Every one has left something they hated. Celebrate the goods times with good times. That’s how a holiday is made.
Independence Day (July 4th)
Most countries have something similar so use that as long as it’s an awesome holiday. Fireworks are greatness which is what puts this holiday on the map. Sure there’s the whole memorial country stuff, but that’s a memorial that just happens to fall on the same day as one of the coolest days off you’ll get this year.
MedialAnnum Drakas (6th of July)
The most important day of my calendar and the second gift-giving day of the year. It celebrates one of the best weeks of my life and is centered on one of the best days ever. I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating again. Celebrate the good times with good times. If nothing else it’ll help you remember them. This one is less about friends and more about just a great day where everything seemed to go right. Why forget about it the next average trashy week? Keep it alive with a holiday or just celebrate how awesome my week was if you’re too lazy to get your own. (I’d do that, but every else has crappy lives.)
Arizonial Celebration (August 19th-Sept 3rd)
This is celebrating a life-changing event that happened. This was when I went to college two thousand miles away from where I lived. (I moved to Arizona). You might have noticed something of a pattern by now. It’s worth celebrating one of the biggest changes in my life because change is good and good change is great and greatness needs to be followed by greatness.
All St. Drakes Day (October 30th)
We’re starting to get into the heathen months (the end of the year) and this is the opening holiday. It’s right before what some people call Halloween. No one has any clue how to celebrate St. Drakes Day, least of all me, which is what makes it amazing. How can you argue with a random day to rise up in glorious euphoric enjoyment?
Van Huten’s Day (October 31st)
Halloween has too many masks, and plastic crap, and general corporate meddling so I just took Halloween and renamed it. No one sells Van Huten’s Day masks or spooky Van Huten’s Day costumes. For those who are curious, Van Huten Tennymar the Third was a fictional (maybe) vampiric alter ego I had in high school. I’ll rename this one if someone gives me an awesome name that’ll work better, but for now this is all about the Huten and the Vanning. (Trick or Treating more like not.)
Drakesgiving (4th Thursday in November)
I always use to be sick on Thanksgiving and the whole family get together thing was annoying. There was only one way to keep the basic holiday while getting rid of the crap…new holiday. I’ve never been sick on Drakesgiving which is card worthy if you were curious.
Drakonokah (2 days before Hanukkah and 5 days after)
Yep. I celebrate this so that I can keep my equal opportunity heathen status. I even made up a story for it. (No I’m not gonna put that up) This one is mostly so that you don’t have to be jealous of people who celebrate religious holidays you like, but don’t feel right celebrating. Feel free to make a Dreaster or Dramadan, or whatever if you need.
Drakomas Eve (December 24th)
Saturnalia (December 25th)
Drakomas (December 26th-January 15th)
Pretty close to the same thing as Drakesgiving and Drakonokah. Drakomas is long because everyone needs a month of celebration. Of course it overlaps New Year’s, but that day jumps over Drakomas Celebrations for a day. Drakomas doesn’t have the corporate babble, the family traditions getting in the way of enjoyment, religious connotations you feel guilty not honoring as you open presents, or insipid songs. (only the cool ones.) Drakomas is optionally a gift giving holiday which gives closet Drakonians a way of hiding under the banner of Christmas.
So that’s my holidays. I felt I needed to elucidate on them a little bit so people have a general idea what the Drakonian Calendar of Holidays is all about and how it came about and why you should use it (perhaps in a slightly modified form.)
Remember most of all: Celebrate the Good Times with Good Times; it’s the only fitting tribute. (This still isn’t an allegorical way to demonstrate a philosophical point so whoever said that can shut up.)
Adieu
 |