TACO DAY

Have you noticed there’s been a proliferation of semi if not totally unimportant days that we now put on our calendars to celebrate with beer and pretzels, chicken wings and bean salad?  How about bagels and lox?  Or, tacos?

We grow up looking forward to days like Thanksgiving and Christmas because school is out, the cooking scents of turkey and pie fill our nostrils and life seems full of rewards of carefully wrapped packages if we’re good.  But there are holidays when all is needed is a trip to the card shop and a salute to Hallmark, which, by the way, I think has a war room filled with holiday starved, underpaid, lonely and really nice people whose job it is just to create holidays worth a Hallmark card.  And if you're even partially as obsessed with this subject as I've become, click: http://www.theultimateholidaysite.com/holidays/2013-1/ 

Now, consider the following holidays, all which exist, that must have been on a Hallmark meeting schedule:

Note:  Please be advised to check on the accuracy of the dates as “holidays can land on a specific day of the year, be tied to a certain day of the week in a certain month or follow other calendar systems like the Lunar Calendar” as per Wikipedia.  I'll be using Lunar Year 2013 as my guide.  This ain’t easy, folks, and I'll not be held responsible for any cards you buy in error.  

JANUARY:

January 4th, National Trivia Day.  Talk about trivial. I always said we take things too seriously.  Actually, I take things too seriously.  And it’s time I celebrated taking trivial things not so seriously.  

 

January 12^th, National Pharmacists Day.  Well, I’m not going to get into this one as my husband’s father used to be a pharmacist.  But, if we’re to be fair, shouldn’t we give medical marijuana distributors equal honors? 

January 24^th, Belly Laugh Day.  Seriously!  It’s right there on the Internet.  Of all the unnecessary holidays, this is the one I find most worth celebrating.  Think for a moment.  Think of the greeting card: Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Barak Obama bent over in uncontrolled hysterical laughter, a glass of tea in their hands and streams of tea running out of their nose uncontrollably.  Inside, the words: “Agreement reached on Israeli settlements but liquids will no longer be served at meetings.”

FEBRUARY:

February 2nd, Groundhog Day.  The scientific community has debunked the reasons for this holiday as hogwash and, as a non scientist, I agree.  Also, as an animal lover I must align myself with the animal rights community and protest the exploitation and humiliation that's visited on the chosen groundhog (known as Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary aka Phil) annually for no reason but to bring business into Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.  It seems that’s a good enough reason in a capitalistic society.

February 8^th, Boy Scout Day.  Okay, I’ve got a beef with this one for moral reasons.  It's now generally known that they bar atheists and gays.  As I'm one who has found atheism more to my liking and have friended and loved gays, I'm taking the privilege of throwing this day out of consideration for a Hallmark card. Are you listening, Hallmark?

February 9th, Bagel and Lox Day.  Had I known about this holiday sooner, I would've observed it religiously.  From now on, it'll be celebrated by a nice holiday brunch with a side of cream cheese, onions, and sour pickles.

MARCH:

March 12^th, Girl Scouts Day.  Well, they do sell cookies.

March 30^th, Doctor’s Day.  Okay, what I want to know is when they’re not in the office because they’re in surgery, or going to conferences in Hawaii, are they out celebrating Doctor’s Day?

APRIL:

April 1^st, April Fool’s Day.  If anyone buys a card for this day, this day then clearly speaks for itself.  Actually, though it’s not a national holiday, I do think it should be…and a working one.  The holiday should last throughout our Congress’s scheduled sessions.  You know, when they’re not out on a real national holiday or taking a break from their tedious and laborious work.  And just so that this post isn't all fun and games, I just went to Wikipedia and found some April Fool’s Day trivia and I quote: “The earliest recorded association between April 1 and foolishness can be found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392).”

April 9^th, Name Yourself Day.  Is Tammin Sursok taken?     

MAY:

^{May 9th, Lost Sock Memorial Day.  I hate this day as it brings up very sad memories.}

JUNE:

June 19^th, Juneteenth Day.  And I’m not even kidding.  I certainly want to be in on this Hallmark creative meeting.

 

JULY:

July 1^st, Canada Day.  I suggest to David Letterman’s writers, if they haven’t already, to do a 10 Reasons To Celebrate Canada Day because I can’t think of a one other than they are better neighbors than some of mine.

July 14^th, Bastille Day.  I, for one, am against celebrating Bastille Day - which as an American, I’m not obligated to do - because this was the beginning of the end for Queen Marie Antoinette, to whom I owe my longing for living in excess.

This is what I'm talking about.

AUGUST:

August 1^st, Girlfriends Day.  The ability for one to practice friendship is truly a tribute to human interaction considering all the interactive dysfunction there is out there.  This is a worthy card buying day.  

August 4th, Sisters Day.  And Sister’s Day is certainly worth a card.  I don’t have any siblings and have had times when I yearned for one or several.  In this, the value of friendship comes to mind as an alternative to the lack of parental production.  As for the brothers out there, your day is August 9^th.   

August 19^th, National Aviation Day.  As I hate to travel, comments on this day will be short.  When they lower the excessive air travel ticket prices and start serving peanuts and pretzels again, I might change my mind.  Enough said.  No card!

SEPTEMBER:

September 16^th, Stepfamily Day.  And as a suggestion to same gender families, if there isn’t one already, I say get on grabbing a day for Same Gender Family Day.  365 may seem like a big number, but in contrast to the national deficit, it’s nothing.

September 27th, Native American Day.  It was impossible to validate the date as this day isn't even celebrated in all states and the ones which do celebrate it celebrate it on different days.  I find this troubling in light of our country’s actions.  And in deference to our fellow citizens, this is a day for which I personally would like to make a card.  Off subject, let me say that many of my relatives and friends know I don’t often buy cards.  I started making them myself when I decided that shopping for a relevant card to celebrate an occasion was driving me mad with frustration and awe at the amount of unremarkable sentiment and humor that was available.  Now, back on subject, consider what the white invaders, Columbus - it is rumored - among them, did to the indigenous people they found upon stepping onto this new territory and up until this day when the first Native American Indian opened their first gambling casino.  I think, in the least, they deserve a real national day.  And a card created by me.  Perhaps it would feature a tribe of really white, blond and braided, blue-eyed folks in leather, feathers and beads on a shore watching the landing of a really red skinned, black haired, brown-eyed guy in a heavy, blousy, belted tunic, tights and a Flying Nun hat followed by his crewmen.  Inside the words as spoken by the red-skinned fellow in the Flying Nun hat and not with the permission of Hal David who wrote them: 

Promises, promises
I'm all through with promises, promises now
I don't know how I got the nerve to walk out
If I shout, remember I feel free
Now I can look at myself and be proud
I'm laughing out loud

OCTOBER:

October 7^th, Madly’s Birth Day.  Give me a little room here.  I think it’s only right that after conceiving and then writing this nonsense, that I be given a day.  And I wish at this time to thank my mother for conceiving me.  I try to live my life well, have no prison record, vote in every election and love animals to distraction.  Of course, I'd have to share this day with June Allyson, Simon Cowell, Yo-Yo Ma, Joy Behar, Vladimir Putin, Desmond Tutu and many more which I'd do joyfully.  I hereby claim rights to October 7^th and will accept any and all commercial greeting cards for which I thank you in advance.

October 9^th, Leif Erickson Day.  No comment but to say that there’s already a Christopher Columbus Day and I don’t wish to rock the boats on which they came.

October 14^th, Columbus Day.  Stay with me here.  Maybe we can recycle the American Indian Day card for this holiday.  Now this is an idea that could very possibly get me an executive job at Hallmark, which, by the way, is a family owned company.  I’m sure they would be delighted with the creative cost savings.

October 16^th, Boss’s Day.  I've a faint recollection that there may actually be a Hallmark Boss’s Day card already published.  I imagine, however, during our recent catastrophic recession, the card was pulled from the shelves to be used at a time when personal finances would allow for such an important expenditure.

October 19^th, Sweetest Day.  No comment as I’ve been advised to stay away from sweets.

NOVEMBER:

November 15^th, Sadie Hawkins Day.  Women should march to make this a national holiday and at the same time honor Al Capp, cartoonist and political satirist.  It's of no importance that Sadie didn’t exist but in the tales about Li’l Abner and Dogpath, USA.  What’s important is she preceded the Woman’s Liberation Movement in throwing off the manacles of passivity in a quest for marital commitment.  This girl deserves a Hallmark card.

DECEMBER:

Very little to be said about this month as all the days that are holidays do not deserve to be toyed with by me.  Except for:

December 26^th, Federal day off for Christmas.  I thought Federal employees had been off all year.

In conclusion, there seems to be an effort to celebrate not only that which is merited but that which is not.  We seem to be a country of folks who like to celebrate even the most inane activities and achievements with little or no regard for reason.  I, myself, like to eat and in that regard, I like days celebrating food.  I was delirious about finding out there was a Bagels and Lox Day.  And in my research, I found that there are several food holidays.  Even a National Taco Day celebrated October 4^th.  And at this time, I’d like to make a suggestion:  Move Taco Day to be celebrated the following day after the worthy holiday of Cinco de Mayo.  Imagine two days of tacos and boilermakers.  Are you listening, Hallmark?