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<\/a>I was just coming down from my three Three Musketeers high the day after Halloween, OK four, when my Sirius radio started playing Christmas music, my wife started telling me about our Thanksgiving Day plans and our friends were asking me what we\u2019re doing for New Years Eve. I\u2019m thinking to myself, why have \u2018they\u2019 crammed these four holidays into the last 62 days of the year?<\/p>\nIt\u2019s 62 days of eating candy, then eating leftover candy, then eating excessively large turkey dinners, then eating calorie-rich Christmas meals accompanied by eggnog, wassail or the latest \u2018holiday beverage\u2019, and then we\u2019re expected to have the \u2018party of the year\u2019 to celebrate the coming of a new year. If I had lost any weight on the variety of diets I\u2019ve been on throughout the year, that ship set sail with the Three Musketeers. Which is how New Year\u2019s resolutions get created I guess.\u00a0 You know, historians aren\u2019t really certain about the actual birth of Jesus anyway and the Gregorian calendar, which we follow, is only one of many available calendars so\u00a0I say move Christmas and New Years to the summer, where at least we can get out and walk off a few calories.<\/span><\/p>\n Thank you, Columbus!<\/p><\/div>\n And as long as we’re moving holidays around, there\u2019s probably some we could get rid of altogether. Columbus Day<\/strong> immediately comes to mind \u2013 a holiday that hangs just outside of that 62 day window, on October 14. This is a strange one to me since Christopher Columbus never set foot on U.S. soil, yet for years we\u2019ve celebrated this Italian’s \u2018discovery of America\u2019<\/strong> along with his other bogus discovery \u2013 proving the world wasn\u2019t flat!\u00a0 \u00a0Columbus Day’s status as a holiday has been sketchy at best.\u00a0 Some states don\u2019t recognize it, but rather eschewed this holiday for \u2018Indigenous People\u2019s Day’,<\/strong>\u00a0which was started in 1992 by, who else, the city of Berkeley.\u00a0 It does make me wonder why we don’t have a national holiday to celebrate Native Americans.\u00a0 I guess we just don’t want to be reminded of what we’ve done to them.\u00a0 But Columbus is vigorously celebrated in many Italian communities, just as the Irish observe St. Patrick\u2019s Day<\/strong> on March 17, which was the day St. Patrick died in AD 461 \u2013 not sure how that became a holiday. To most of us it\u2019s just another time to hoist a drink \u2013 preferably Irish whiskey or beer.<\/p>\n So we have the Italians and Irish taken care of and the Afro-Americans with the celebration of Martin Luther King\u2019s birthday<\/strong>, which is the \u2018third Monday in January\u2019 \u2013 I wonder if that\u2019s how it read on his driver\u2019s license. This federal holiday was first celebrated in 1986, but Arizona didn\u2019t recognize the holiday until 1992 when the NFL boycotted the state\u2019s Super Bowl. New Hampshire was the last state to adopt the holiday in 1999. Three states, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas<\/strong>, today, celebrate both MLK\u2019s and Robert E. Lee\u2019s<\/strong> birthday on that third Monday in It used to be that we\u2019d celebrate Lincoln\u2019s birthday<\/strong> on Feb 12th<\/sup> and Washington\u2019s birthday<\/strong> on Feb 18th<\/sup> and if I\u2019m not mistaken, back in the day we got both of those days off school if they fell during the week. Now they\u2019ve combined them so that we have President\u2019s Day<\/strong> on the third Monday in February. But it is not just to celebrate Lincoln and Washington birthdays, it is to celebrate ALL presidents. So next February don’t forget to wish Rutherford B. Hayes<\/strong> a happy birthday.<\/p>\n I hate to pick on another religious holiday, but have you ever wondered why the date for Easter<\/strong> keeps moving around? Well, exactly when we celebrate this highly religious holiday is based on the position of the sun along with the phases of the moon.\u00a0 For the record, Easter<\/strong> occurs on the first Sunday after the first full moon<\/strong> occurring on or after the vernal equinox<\/strong> (approximately March 20-21 in the northern hemisphere), when the sun crosses the plane of the earth\u2019s equator\u00a0\u2013 seems rather voodoo-like to me for such an august occasion.<\/span><\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the \u2018BBQ Holidays\u2019,<\/strong> Memorial Day<\/strong>, when we break out the BBQ, Independence Day<\/strong>, when the BBQ works its hardest and Labor Day<\/strong>, after which we put the BBQ away. I think the meaning of these holidays gets diluted in all the BBQ sauce and the attendant adult beverages, so I\u2019m suggesting that these holidays be moved away from summer.<\/p>\n Oh yeah, there is another holiday in these last 62 days of the year, Veterans Day;<\/strong> yep, that\u2019s Go wild and crazy this week and celebrate by thanking a veteran for his\/her service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bob Sparrow I was just coming down from my three Three Musketeers high the day after Halloween, OK four, when my Sirius radio started playing Christmas music, my wife started telling me about our Thanksgiving Day plans and our … read more![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/flat-world.jpeg\")
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<\/a>January \u2013 apparently hoping that the \u2018south will rise again\u2019. \u00a0But the largest ethnic minority in the U.S., at 18%, the Latinos<\/strong>, have no national holiday. Yes, there\u2019s Cinco de Mayo<\/strong>, which is celebrated where there are heavy Hispanic populations, but that commemorates a short-lived victory of Mexico over France. I guess Taco Tuesday<\/strong> is going to have to do until we celebrate a birthday of someone like Cesar Chavez<\/strong> \u2013 his birthday was March 31, but it can easily be changed to \u2018the last Monday in March\u2019.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Veterans.jpeg\")
<\/a> this week, but don\u2019t feel bad if you didn\u2019t remember it, most people don’t. This is only a holiday that celebrates the men and women who have defended the freedoms that give us the right to be such a diverse and dysfunctional country.<\/p>\n