Elgin piece in Flash

I could not get into 750 words. I like to write for Elgin there because it counts the words for me. But this will do. This month’s topic is pretty bad but I will see what I can do.

Elgin Writers Group - November 2024 -

My Least Favorite Holiday

I think I might like April Fools Day least. I mean it’s mean. What can I say? Your shoe’s untied? But here’s what Artificial Intel had to say:

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The Gregorian calendar was introduced in October 1582, replacing Julius Caesar’s Julian calendar which had began January 1, 45 BC. It’s leap year formula added an extra day every 128 years, which overcompensated for the length of a solar year. By 1582, seasonal equinoxes were falling 10 days too early, and some church holidays, like Easter, were not falling in the proper seasons.

In Feruary 1582, Pope Gregory XIII issued the papal bull Inter gravissimas, authorizing the Gregorian calendar. Most Roman Catholic countries adopted the new calendar, but Protestant and Eastern Orthodox countries initially did not.

The Gregorian calendar made the following changes to the Julian calendar:
Dropped 10 days from October 1582 - to straighen out the misplaced Equinoxes.
Revised the formula for determining leap years so that only years divisible by 400 at the end of a century would be leap years.
Established January 1 as the first day of the new year, leaving room for April 1 to be April Fool’s Day.

Rutgers Univrsity via Google told me that one April 1 BBC announced that Big Ben was going digital and said that the first person calling would get its hands. Another example was a National Public Radio announcement in 1992 that Richard Nixon who had resigned in 1974 was going to run for President again. They had an actor who sounded like Nixon in their clip. The third example given was a museum who forbade digital photos because the light eroded the sculptures.

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Maybe my least least favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. During my work life I almost always got both Thursday and Friday off, so it was a four day holiday. Sometimes I would have vacation days left and I would take the whole week off. I approve of the sentiment of the holiday, and it’s fairly low key. Main focus of the day is food and I’m willing to come up with a meal.

But I don’t like Halloween. I think it teaches kids greed. And kids are greedy enough without being encouraged. I realize that is not a popular opinion, but it’s mine.

But old Catholic in me has a tender spot for the day after Halloween - All Saints Day and the day after that which is All Souls Day. I like the universality of both those holidays. We all fit in their somewhere.

Christmas can be a greedy holiday too. Thing about Christmas is that no matter what you do, it’s never enough. Some Christmases are better than others. Sometimes I prepare better. I might send cards, or shop, or decorate. I might cook. Other years, I don’t.

Now the four pagan holidays that follow the sun are kind of fun. Solstice, summer and winter, and the equinoxes - if they’re not being Hondas - happen in spring and fall. I’m ok with them, I like how they divide the year into quarters, into seasons, into light and dark, extremes and equalities. I mean wow.