April – it’s more than just Easter

By Karrie McAllister

Trust me, I’m a candy eater. I’m the one who picks through my children’s Easter baskets and says “oh, these candies look a little funny, I’d better taste them all just in case.”
The candy, coupled with the Spring flowers and chance to finally wear flip flops again makes me a big fan of April. (I’m purposely overlooking the fact that sometimes here in Ohio we’re trading our sandals for snowboots.)
But a little time on the Internet and you’ll find that there are plenty of reasons to celebrate the month of April. It seems that, over the years, people have somehow concocted obscure holidays that I didn’t even know about, giving us an excuse to party every day of the year.
A quick visit to www.holidayinsights.com and I’ve got an extremely packed schedule this month. There are just too many holidays to celebrate.
The 14th of April is Look Up At The Sky Day. I’m hoping it’s a nice day. I might just stand out there for a long time and feel a little poetic. Thankfully, the 15th is National Rubber Eraser Day, so while writing my poem if I make some mistakes, I can always erase them. And hopefully I’ll get it done by the 28th, Great Poetry Reading Day.
And if you’re a lover of fine foods, April might just be the month for you! There is Eggs Benedict Day on the 16th, Cheeseball Day on the 17th, Pretzel Day on the 26th, and National Prime Rib Day on the 27th. Just think – there were times when we thought all the Easter eggs and candy were bad for us. Those little chocolates have nothing on Cheeseball Day.
I know personally that I’ll have a hard time keeping up with the list of daily holidays. My busy schedule might not have time for things like celebrating Blah, Blah, Blah Day on the 17th, but I’m not worried because there are some fantastic reasons to celebrate the entire month of April.
That’s right, the ENTIRE month.
April is National Pecan month, giving us all a good, solid reason to be a little nutty and eat plenty of sweet pecan pie. It’s also National Welding month, giving some of us a reason to weld away to our hearts content. I know I myself will not be welding, not only because I don’t know how to do it, but also because I’ll be on such a sugar high from National Jelly Bean Day (22 April) that it probably wouldn’t be a wise activity.
April is also National Stress Awareness month, so I suppose we should all pay attention to our stress levels. And once we figure out that we should all lighten up a bit, April is also conveniently National Humor Month, which makes me happy because I love a good joke.
To help you celebrate Humor month, I’ll get you started. Knock Knock. Who’s there? Emerson. Emerson who? Emerson nice shoes you got on.
See? Stress levels down already.
I’m actually very glad to have found this list of bizarre holidays. Sometimes my family gets so bogged down with the daily rigors of life and all of the things that need to be done that we could use a little reminder to stop what we’re doing and rejoice in today. We need to remember to enjoy what we have today, because tomorrow it might be gone.
This list should serve as a reminder to us all to carpe diem a little bit, and whoop it up no matter what, even if it is 23 April, National Zucchini Bread Day. (Now there’s a vegetable with some major party potential…)
I would like to mention that 18 April is National Newspaper Columnists Day. Feel free to send gifts.
By the way, 30 April is National Honesty Day. And for that reason, I swear this column is all completely 100% true.