Well, look at that. Columbus Day actually falls on Columbus Day this year.
I never did like the Monday Holiday Bill, as we still call it. But sometimes you get to choose your battles, and this one is not mine. Still, that doesn't stop me from being extra happy when the traditional holiday happens to fall on a Monday, and I can pretend there's still some historical connection between the event and the celebration. ("In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," landing in the Americas on October 12, by the old calendar.) So,
Happy Columbus Day!
Some of you, I know, do not celebrate Columbus Day. If so, just pretend that I wished you Happy Hanukkah and you're not Jewish, or Eid Mubarak and you're not Muslim, or Seasons Greetings and you're celebrating something much more particular than "the Season." Take my happy wishes if you want them, ignore them if you don't.
Disassociating oneself from the historic meaning of a holiday is not unusual, nor surprising, especially now that so many have been made Monday holidays for the express purpose of encouraging people to think not about the significance of the event but about vacation time. But the peculiarity of America is our eagerness to leave behind even the name of a holiday, lest it bring to mind the event that inspired it. The Japanese don't have that problem: The population is only about one percent Christian, but regardless of their beliefs they happily sing Christmas carols about the birth of Jesus, and like to celebrate weddings in churches. Europe was determinedly secular long before America, yet we are the ones who take down public crèche displays and hesitate to wish our neighbors "Merry Christmas." Europeans are delighted to honor Christian holidays, from Easter to the Assumption of Mary, by closing businesses and taking the day off from work. They may have no idea what Pentecost is all about, but who cares? A party is a party. Maybe, too, it comes from the European sense of history and heritage, which America, being younger and more diverse, seems to lack—to our detriment, I think.
Have yourselves a merry little Columbus Day, unless of course you'd rather not.
