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Wednesday, March 17, 1999
I'm not too crazy about St. Patrick's Day. I'm not sure if it's getting pinched just once too often or just a dislike of too much fake Irishness. No, people, everyone is not Irish on St. Patrick's Day. I like Irish music and dance. I would love to visit Ireland and I love pictures of all the lovely green in Ireland. I just don't like St. Patrick's Day. I'm not a very good holiday person all around. I usually stay home on New Years Eve. I'm not sure if I will break this for 2000, though I don't know where I would go. Now that I don't have a car I don't even need to worry about a designated driver, I'd call a cab. Part of the New Years thing is that it is such a couple thing. All that hugging and kissing at midnight. Easter is just a bunch of sorry looking eggs and little kids crying because they didn't get as much. I didn't mind decorating eggs when my kids were small, but after they had handled them all several times and I had hid them several times and then they had to carry them around for a while, the shells were cracked and the eggs were looking a little bit grungy. I do like the idea of all the pretty easter outfits, but I never seemed to get my act together enough to get one of them. I must admit I always enjoyed the easter services, especially the high episcopal ones. They were always so joyous. Now I like the Fourth of July. There are parades and fireworks and picnics. That is the way to have a holiday. Memorial Day and Labor Day were always just bookend three day weekends around summer. We get off on Veteran's Day in October also. Nice, but I don't know anyone who died in war and the only point of Labor Day seems to avoid labor. Considering I have two uncles and four brothers and my father, none of them ever died in a war. I did have one brother, Johnny, who died but he was only eight and drowned in the bathtub. His grave is in Mexico City and I wonder if there's anything left or if even the gravestone has been stolen. They stole the granite flower pots several times while my parents were still living down there. The people holidays, Presidents Day (this used to be Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday), Martin Luther King Day and Columbus Day are interesting but we only get off on Martin Luther King Day. I'm still ambivalent about getting off on MLK day instead of Washington's birthday. MLK was a great person, but Washington was the father of our country. Columbus day is not politically correct but I think he did a rather exciting and brave thing. He may have been an asshole, but he was a brave one. Lincoln I really like and wish we celebrated his birthday more. Thanksgiving is a very good holiday. Just eat and be thankful. How much better can it get? Christmas is another iffy one. I enjoy being with my family, but still have leftover feelings from when I was a child, and spent most of my Christmases away from my parents, and when my children were small and there was never enough money to give them as much as I would have liked and I used to feel bad when their friends had so much more. Even so I spent more than I really should have. Part of the whole thing is that I never had those family traditions that many people have and I've never been a good tradition maker. Ok, I like Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. Christmas is nice because I can be with family and the rest are mainly enjoyed because I get off work. I guess I am not a very celebratory person.
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