The art of celebration
The young boy aims for the sitting goose on the pond, a loner, we called it. Using a .410 shotgun, he squeezed off a single shot, killing the goose. We all smile and cheer silently, as other geese are showing up over the treetops and heading for our blind. Later that evening, the goose is completely cleaned. The neck to the head is sewn up with intricate beadwork and people are happily getting ready to celebrate a young man’s first goose. On other occasions, the first kill of any species is recognized and acknowledged in respect for both the animal and hunter. Sharing this kill is an honour and a good excuse to feast.
One of my favourite celebrations is the birthday. That is, until the children and grandchildren outnumber the number of months and weeks in a year and attending everyone’s party becomes a full-time job. Having too much fun does have its downside when it comes to birthdays, so I propose that there be one day a year set aside for everyone to celebrate their birthday. To make it even better, have it in August, which doesn’t seem to have any official holiday. The International Birthday would top the commercial charts everywhere in the world for gift sales simply because everyone has a birthday, duh!
But why do we have to celebrate just about everything? We could have another day and call it International Life Day where just the act of getting up and carrying yourself around to do your everyday things like cooking a homemade meal and posting it or changing the diaper for the first time. How about going binge shopping at a distant mall during another sales event? Just to say you survived those kinds of life things, the little drips in your bucket list.
Everyone who has a 9-to-5 job could observe this day. Coffee would be the National Drink and peak performance working on the job contests could be held. The entire world would be all hyped up. It’s like the run of the bulls – dangerous but you do it anyways.
Life does have its memorable moments that actually were fun but are only realized decades later, like the first time tobacco hit your lungs. I remember my first time, it was a giant cigar that my buddy stole from his dad and we were out back lighting it up. Buddy goes into convulsions and we cough our guts out, swearing never to ever smoke again. Nothing to party about on a national scale but perhaps we could call it First Mishap Day, the morning set aside in respect for those who didn’t make it and the rest of the day for the lucky survivors. It could be really cool if death-defying acts were thrown in for good measure and secretly call it National Adrenaline Day.
People tend to complain a lot, if you haven’t noticed. We could make this a sombre three-day event, where everyone could complain, rant and rave, and speak their mind on just about everything. This would be the most expensive time to buy insurance so everyone who might had an accident that day would be out of luck as most insurance brokers would be on holiday, knowing that the rates were too high and if a sale was actually made, they made money anyways. This could be held in April, right after April Fool’s Day, because, who wants to ruin summer with negativity?
Yep, the holidays could be adjusted. Now how about adding some holinights?