The most serious holiday.

I wrote in an older blog post that Remembrance Day was the saddest and most solemn of all holidays.

Mother's Day is the most serious of all holidays. If you don't honour your mother, you're in big trouble. She will be devastated. Mothers take this day very, very seriously.

On the flip side, father's day isn't much of a big deal. Half the cards are gag cards making fun of fathers' incompetence and farting problems. Dads don't care.

Mother's Day is the only day that galvanizes men everywhere. For every other holiday, we let our wives take care of the festivities. But for mothers day, we actually have to make an effort.

For example, a friend and I once agreed that if there were no women on earth, all holidays would simply die out - because men wouldn't care enough to keep them going. Perhaps mother's day would be the only exception - we'd keep mother's day alive to honour the women who no longer exist on earth.

Easter isn't a big deal.

From the ages of about 10 to 30 Easter isn't a big deal. Then you have kids or get married and Easter becomes more of a big deal.

It's the lost holiday. The holiday that disappears and them emerges later in life.

When you're a kid you care about easter because it means Easter Bunny and candy. When you're an adult you care only about the long weekend.

I suppose too if you're religious you would care about easter. I'm not religious.

Cindy tells me that you can send easter cards out to people nowadays. Last week she saw a huge lineup in the mall to sit on the Easter bunny's lap.

Don't remember that when I was a kid. Sit on the easter bunny's lap?

Some people get depressed on Valentine's Day because they don't have a partner.

V-Day is one of those holidays that gets a lot of grief. Especially from single-women. They often get "depressed" on Valentine's Day because they don't have a boyfriend.

V-Day reminds them that they are lonely and they don't need to be reminded. Sometimes they get downright angry and say, "It's such a 'fake' holiday!"

Many men agree and say it's invented by the greeting card companies so that they can make money.

To rebel against the holiday, some women go out and do a "girly" things with their other single girlfriends. They pretend that they're proud of their "independence from being in a relationship."

But you know what? The whole idea that they need to rebel and have hate on towards Valentine's Day shows that they care.

If they truly didn't care about being single on Valentine's Day, then it would just be like any other day. No need to emote.

If you took these people and said, "I will give you the greatest boyfriend you could want right now with the snap of my fingers" they would all beg you to snap their fingers.

It's just like when really fat people say that they're happy with their bodies and that fat is beautiful. If you snapped your finger and magically made them skinny, they wouldn't want to be fat again.

It's called lying to yourself. And we all do it. Valentine's Day is one of those holidays that can bring out the lie.

I remember when boxing day used to be a big deal.

I think Boxing Day was a big deal when I was a kid. I vaguely remember that it was illegal for stores to open on boxing day, but many did anyway and faced government fines for breaking the law.

How silly.

I also remember huge crowds and line ups - similar to "Black Friday" in the States where Walmart shoppers trample each other trying to buy stereos.

Except this was Canada so it was much more polite. No trampling. Even in high school I remember walking around the malls on boxing day, shoulder to shoulder with all the people trying to save 30% on a $20 compact disc.

First, are the prices that good on Boxing Day? I don't know. I imagine they're pretty good, but not spectacular. Stores still need to make money. They don't give stuff away. So my guess is that in most cases you would be paying more than wholesale.

Second, is it worth the hassle? Think of the crowds and lineups and general inconvenience. Is it worth it to put up with this to save a few dollars? Maybe. Not for me though. Not for a lot of people. In fact, I'd pay 30% more if I could guaranteed that the malls would be empty, I'd have great service and the parking lot would be wide open.

Third, I bet half the stuff they advertise is gone. You'd show up the store and they'd do a classic bait and switch. Unless you were one of the idiots who lined up outside at 3am - then you may have been lucky enough to buy that object that will change your life forever and make you happy.

Nowadays boxing day isn't a big deal anymore. Places like Costco have low, warehouse prices all the time. Regular stores have boxing week sales. No rush. You can buy most things online for pretty cheap, and if you really want to cheap out you can go to Craigslist.

Isn't a boxing day blow out sale such a strange thing? I mean, here we are, complaining for the last month about the commercialization of Christmas and how poor we are and how it's such a hassle to buy gifts, then THE DAY AFTER Christmas we rush out to the malls to trample on people so we can buy more shit.

Now I'm angry.

People pretend that they don't like Christmas.

I've noticed that people openly groan about Christmas. "Oh no it's already here!" they'll say. Or "I haven't started my shopping," or "[groan] I have to put up my decorations soon".

People complain about how the stores are already decorating, and the stores put out advertisements saying how "busy" you are this holiday season and how stressful it is, so you should just buy their product.

Television commercials show stressed out people, awkward inlaws, terrible gifts. People complain about the corny Christmas music.

If this is all true, than why do we even celebrate Christmas?

The answer is that people actually like Christmas. It's cool to pretend that we don't, but we do. No one likes to admit this.

Even my co-worker was complaining about Christmas. Then I noticed through various comments that she liked Christmas. I confronted her. "You actually LOVE Christmas, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do..." she admitted.

Christmas lights are up.

On November 13 I first noticed Christmas lights in our neighbourhood. November 13! It's getting later and later every year. Usually the lights go up early November. The day after Halloween.

What's going on? Why are people becoming more humbug? Why don't people want to decorate?

I think it comes down to 2 reasons. 1) Laziness. People no longer want to put an effort into celebrating the holiday season. This is a shame. 2) Less holiday spirit. In the old days, people lit their houses up after Thanksgiving. And the lights were huge, extravagant, unbelievable.

Christmas is just not the big deal it used to be. The last few years, holiday shopping spending has been flat. I haven't even heard any Christmas carols on the radio. Usually this time of year one of the stations goes 24/7 Christmas. Nothing yet.

People it's mid November. Christmas will be here in the blink of an eye! We need to start celebrating and partying and buying gifts. We need to start standing in line and getting alcohol and calling restaurants to book our holiday party.

Things are changing. Christmas is fading away, and I don't like it one bit.

Today is Remembrance Day

This is definitely the most solemn holiday. You're not really supposed to be happy on this day - which is tough because it's a free day off work. (It's a holiday in some parts of Canada, not in others.) How can you not be happy?

Actually Good Friday is also supposed to be a bummer. Jesus died. How can you be happy about that? The thing is a lot of people aren't religious so they're not too bummed out about Good Friday.

Remembrance Day on the other hand is just sad. All those people who died in wars. Suffered for us and our freedom. Sacrificed their lives.

It's always cold on Remembrance Day and raining or snowing. There's supposed to be a minute silence at 11am, but no one ever goes the full minute. It's more like a 30 second silence, and even then it's punctuated by that sad trumpet.

In school Remembrance Day was the day when you had an assembly and someone read Flanders Fields and an old war vet came and spoke about the war. I remember being proud of wearing my poppy, and often pricking my fingers on its pin.

One Remembrance Day I was in a really solemn mood. I decided I would write a poem about the sacrifice veterans made for us. A poem that would rival Flanders Fields. About 5 minutes in I realized my poem was horrible and I quickly aborted the idea. That was the day that I basically learned I'd never be a poet.