Holiday, thy be upon us!

Have a heart, will ya?

Spooky! I kid you not. As I sat down to write this post the song “Holiday” by Green Day began to play on my Pandora. Is that good timing or what?!? I guess I’ll take that as a sign. Things portend well for this post.

So yeah, for most of us, Valentine’s Day is the official end of the holiday gauntlet season and that is certainly something worth celebrating!

Yeah!

The holiday gauntlet is almost a full fifty percent of the year where every 42 minutes or so another holiday is right around the corner. A holiday that, if you screw up, your ass will be a sling with your loved one and put you in a hole where it will take at least three more holidays to dig yourself out.

August 27th – The official start of the holiday gauntlet. For me, that’s my wedding anniversary date.

October 31st – Halloween. A day where you’d much prefer to lock the door and pretend not to be home, but this only makes your mate angry. They seem to think its fun to spend money on garbage and give it away to punks for free.

Fourth Thursday in November – Thanksgiving. A day where you will work your ass off and otherwise won’t do much of anything you want. If you’re lucky you might get to watch a little football.

December 24th – Christmas Eve. The peak of the holiday gauntlet. Nuff said.

December 25th – Christmas. More peakage. Nuff said.

December 31st – New Year’s Eve. Not usually a biggie as far as carnage goes but you may be pressured to stay up past your bedtime.

February 14th – Valentine’s Day. And, cruelly, only about seven short weeks from Christmas. Hang on, almost done! Also, I’d really like my heart attack to fall on this day some year in the future.

March 5th – Wife’s birthday.

For me, that’s a gauntlet of 171 days. Almost half a year! (You’ll have to adjust your own bonus holidays to calculate your version of your own gauntlet.)

That’s a holiday every 21 days or every three weeks. It’s intense. It’s draining. And, unless you are very, very careful, you may not survive it.

Holidays are nefarious. They are there to tempt your loved ones into believing you don’t love them unless you perform some ritual, rite, and/or procure gifts, perfumes, flowers, edible treats, cardboard with messages contained within, and jewelry. He went to Jared!!! and Every kiss begins with Kay!!!

Blech. I’d rather ingest pharmaceuticals.

P.S. Honey, if you are reading this, don’t forget. I LOVE YOU!!! ❤