May the fourth be with you

How many times have you heard it said that “there aren’t enough days in a year” to get some task or other done? Well, my take is that’s because we have too many Days in the year.

The point was brought home to me on my wife’s favourite day of the year—the winter solstice (although I suspect from now on it will be known and celebrated as Apocalypse Day). It’s not that she’s particularly into crystals or new age healing. For her, its enjoying the feeling that for the next six months, each day will be filled with more light than the previous one. It may get colder yet, but it’s inexorably getting lighter. You can keep your equinoxes and summer solstice.

But we never get to celebrate the winter solstice because it falls too darn close to Christmas. In fact, every year seems to be a mad rush of special days spilling into special days. We’ve got Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, Robbie Burns’ Day, Valentine’s Day, Family Day, avoiding St. Patrick’s Day; and then the sudden onrush of Good Friday, Easter Monday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Victoria Day and Canada Day. Then we cruise through Civic Holiday, Labour Day, Thanksgiving Day and Remembrance Day, and catch sight of Christmas again.

That’s a heck of a lot of “Days”—and we’re only just getting started. There are several nationally recognized Days that aren’t public holidays. The Department of Canadian Heritage recognizes National Flag Day on Feb. 15, National Aboriginal Day on June 21, St. Jean Baptiste Day on June 24 and Canadian Multiculturalism Day on June 25. There was a law passed in 1982 to recognize the birthdays of Sir John A. Macdonald on Jan. 11 and Wilfrid Laurier on Nov. 20. (Strangely enough, the department’s website has lots to say about the former Conservative prime minister but is stone silent on the former Liberal PM.)

Then there are our significant religious holy days like Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday and numerous Saints’ days; and that’s dipping only our fingertips into the Christian calendar, and only the Christian calendar. And we all have our own list of family anniversaries.

Our friends at the United Nations have complicated matters still further for us by naming by my count some 61 official international days of this, that and the other, all no doubt very worthy in their own right, such as International Women’s Day on March 8, World Mental Health Day on Oct. 10 and World Aids Day on Dec. 1. (For some reason, they slipped in a World Television Day on Nov. 21, which doesn’t seem to rank right up there with the big ones, but we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt).

Sliding down towards the bottom of the barrel, we have our ‘excuse to do stupid things’ days like Groundhog Day, April Fool’s Day and Halloween. And we have our ‘I didn’t know they had a day for that’ days, like Pi Day on March 14 (“celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world,” according to the website). And there are days that for some reason haven’t received universal approbation, like “Administrative Professionals’ Day (formerly Secretaries’ Day)” on April 24, and Grandparents’ Day on the first Sunday after Labour Day. Some clown even started an International Star Wars Day. (Check this column’s headline for the date.)

And I haven’t even got to the clutter of official years, months and weeks that lies on top of the messy pile of official Days. Did you know, for example, that 2013, the Chinese Year of the Snake, is also the International Year of Water Co-operation, the International Year of Statistics (how probable is that!) and the International Year of Quinoa? Or that March, 2013 has been declared Cheerleader Safety Month by the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators? Or that the second week in December is Dromedary Awareness Week in Prince Edward County?

My point should be pretty obvious by now. How many days are there left for us just to acknowledge nothing except to think our own thoughts or work on our own priorities? Not enough. And there still won’t be enough even if someone has the bright idea to start an ‘International Do Your Own Thing Day.’ We need acres of time to ourselves. So It’s time for us to start selectively ignoring official Days for things we don’t care much about. Maybe I’ll be big, bold and gracious and say I’ll skip Father’s Day.

At the same time, I feel kind of sorry for poor neglected Wilfrid Laurier, so I’ll take his Nov. 20 observance, and give up Groundhog Day. And now that I’ve come across it, I have to confess that 3.1415926535… has a certain ring to it. So I think maybe this year I’ll trade in Robbie Burns Day and go with International Pi Day instead. I’ve always had a thing for round numbers.

David Simmonds’s writing is also available at www.grubstreet.ca.