Family Daze

The holidays where nobody buys presents or sends cards

By Debbie Farmer

I don't want you to get too excited or anything, but there was a holiday back on March 6 that passed virtually unnoticed: National Frozen Food Day. Now I don't know about you, but I'm amazed at how an entire day dedicated to celebrating the virtues of frozen asparagus could be overlooked. And that's not all. Imagine my surprise when I learned, on top of that, I completely missed National Multiple Personalities Day on March 5, and the entire Festival of Extraterrestrial Abductions on March 20. I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

Now, in case you've also missed these important events, don't be too hard on yourself. According to the Calendar of Bizarre American Holidays, there are all sorts of obscure days that no one bothers to tell you about. Yes, it's true.

By now, you are probably thinking, "Who cares? We have enough trouble remembering the major holidays without having to remember these quirky little ones, too, you know."

Me, I say phooey on the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Let's face it, any day that celebrates tortilla chips or the patent of the Eskimo Pie is long overdue.

As I see it, one of the best things about these kinds of holidays is that there's not a whole lot of preparation involved. It's more like getting permission to continue doing what you've been doing all year round, guilt free.

Take, for example, National Serve-Something-on-a-Stick Day. March 28, is the one day out of the year that serving corn dogs for dinner isn't being lazy or culinary challenged or non-health conscious. It is, in fact, celebrating. And I don't need to tell you that the same goes for National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day on April 2 and Cheeseball Appreciation Day on April 17. Plus, as an extra added bonus, canned food not only gets a day, it gets an entire festival that lasts through the month of February. A month!

Face it, another nice thing is that there's a day for everyone. For example, my friend Shirley, the owner of three dogs, really goes all out for International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day, but completely ignores National Ask Your Cat a Question Day. My friend Fran, a more new-age sort of person, routinely celebrates National Increase your Psychic Powers Day, but refuses to acknowledge The Festival of Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.

Of course, the major downside to these holidays is that when you try to tell people about them, they will think you've been sampling the good cooking sherry again. I mean try explaining to your children that it's OK to take handfuls of squash to the neighbor's house, leave it on the doorstep, then ring the bell and run away, because it's August 8, which is, and I swear this is true, National-Sneak-Some-Zucchini-on-Your-Neighbor's-Porch-Night. Go ahead. Try it.

Frankly, my personal favorite holiday is National No Housework Day. Every April 7, I kick off my yearly celebration by putting on my good robe and serving breakfast shakes in paper cups. Then I grab the television remote and practice writing my name in the dust on the living room table.

Naturally, when my husband comes home from work and sees me sitting on the sofa eating chips in my pajamas he automatically thinks he's caught me lolling around shirking my household duties. He has no idea that I'm in the midst of celebrating.

"Come on. That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard of," he says. "I mean who's ever heard of a holiday for no housework? Bwahahahahahhahah!"

And on and on he goes.

That is, until I remind him that March 11 is National Worship of Tools Day.

And, face it, you just can't argue with logic like that.

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Debbie Farmer is the author of Life in the Fast-Food Lane: Surviving the Chaos of Parenting, available at http://www.familydaze.com.

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