Singles Awareness Day

While surfing for Valentine's info I can across this new satirical holiday... What do you think - does Valentine's Day need a counter-holiday or is this just going too far?

Singles Awareness Day (SAD) celebrates anti-love sentiments on February 13th, 14th and/or 15th. The official description is a holiday to celebrate being happy without a partner or gathering to commiserate being alone but some sites labeled the SAD holiday just self deprecating bad humour.

So would you wish someone "Happy SAD" or "Happy Valentine's Day"?

Valentines Day

Typically cynical towards the 'Hallmark' holiday I decided to do some investigating into the history of Valentine's Day in an attempt to give it some validity.

Originally named after a couple early Christian martyrs but not an official christian holiday it was Chaucer's era in the High Middle Ages who were responsible for developing February 14th into a recognized holiday. Predominantly celebrated in western culture Valentine's Day celebrated a tradition of courtly love in its early days. The exchange of valentines were meant to be a mutual exchange of love notes and in the 18th century an Ester Howland developed a business of selling handmade valentine cards. By the 19th century the card tradition has blossomed and been exported to North America. Today the Greeting Card Association estimates 1 billion cards are exchanged every Valentine's Day.

I guess I'll concede that there is some romantic history to Valentine's Day and though the holiday is far too commercial for my liking it is a nice excuse to show some love!

Groundhog Day

All the groundhogs in North America saw their shadows today and are predicting six more weeks of winter. Can't say I'm overly surprised (when has winter ever ended before the mid March in Canada?) but it would have been a nice relief from the -20 weather we've had all January! The whole groundhog superstition began with western folklore claiming that if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on February 2nd there are another six weeks of winter yet to come.

Mark Engstrom, senior mammals curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, stated in a Toronto Star article today that groundhogs "come out early to mate and are influenced to leave their dens based on the amount of light and their need to procreate. They are not emerging because they think it is warm." My question is if any hibernating animal will do explain to me why we haven't fired these groundhogs for a more preferable animal?

February began with two of the warmest and sunniest days we've had all winter... I'm hoping the groundhogs were wrong on this one and that my horse shedding her winter coat early has a better pulse on mother nature!

For the full groundhog prediction checkout this Toronto Star article.

Babs