It wasn’t until a few days after Christmas that my friend “Gertrude” and I were able to exchange gifts over Indian food and quasi-stale German chocolates. Though the grub was an exercise in multiculturalism – lacking only sitar music and dancers gyrating in lederhosen – the gift she gave me was decidedly American in nature: a ticket to an annual, all-day beer festival in Portland. That’s about as red-white-and-blue as you can get without frying meat. Or firing a gun. At meat.
There’s so much brilliance behind this gift choice that it’s almost difficult to fathom. Physicists studying the collisions of accelerated particles in Switzerland can only aspire to Gertrude’s insight and thoughtfulness. Biologists identifying the gene mutations that trigger evolution are rendered cone-capped dunces in the shadow of her towering foresight. Even the guy who invented the cronut is like, “Whoa, Gertie, right on, girl.”
See, the beer festival takes place near the end of January. And January stinks. You know it and I know it. After a holiday season rich with elves, lights, and the sweet crooning carols of one honey-voiced Johnny Mathis, the new year’s inaugural month is a bleak stretch of awful. There’s literally nothing redeeming about it, unless of course there’s snow and you’re fond of skiing, in which case you’re a big poopy-face. (Translation: “I’m jealous. And you’re a big poopy-face.”)
What the beer fest does is give burgeoning alcoholics like myself something to look forward to – an event that breaks up the monotony of snarling winds and iced-over windshields. It’s exactly what January needs.
’Cause let’s face it – it needs something. Some sort of a come-down holiday that eases us into a gentle landing after the whiz-bang rocket flight of Christmas. The way it is now, with four empty weeks of suck, it’s a pretty rough transition back into normalcy. If December is a raging kegger, January is a pounding hangover, one long what-just-hit-me moment which inspires thoughts of glum hibernation in a remote mountain cave. If it were remotely feasible, I’d volunteer to spend the next eight weeks preserved in ice like a Neolithic caveman, only to be reanimated when the first robin makes its initial tentative chirp. Heck, for that matter, they could keep me frozen until 2115, when the Earth’ll likely be a hot molten mess, and civilization reduced to a few wandering tribes hunting badgers with spears. At least then I could start wearing sandals.
This year, there’s beer, a makeshift, stopgap holiday gifted to me by a like-minded summer lover. But what about future winters? I can’t bank on Gertrude’s willingness to make this an annual excursion, and there’s no guarantee the event organizers will be able to keep it going indefinitely, though hopefully they can. What’s needed is an official holiday. Nothing as big or splashy as Christmas, since that would be nervous-system overload, and would probably ruin many a New Year’s resolution to stop gorging on snacks like a malnourished refugee. Nothing too frivolous or silly, since Halloween’s basically got that market cornered.
Something like Easter, though ... that might just be the ticket.
Easter, needless to say, is a pretty big deal in Christianity, when church attendance spikes to levels not seen since the heyday of Brylcreem. But when you divest Easter from its religious connotations, what’s left, exactly? Some colored eggs, an enormous rabbit, and family members sitting around a giant slab of ham. Take the Christ out of Easter, and it’s Mushroom Monday at a hippie commune.
So. You’ve been given a seat on the January Holiday Creation Committee. You’re using Easter as a template. Great. Only you don’t want to plagiarize that holy day, bunny and all; you want your new celebration to be unique, have its own flavor and character.
Here’s an idea I’ve been kicking around: Thankseastermas.
Held on the last Friday of the month – none of this Thursday nonsense – Thankseastermas gathers the family around an assortment of cheese nachos and $5 footlongs from Subway. The children color marshmallows, and on Friday night, they’re visited by Santa Claus’ brother, Chuck Claus, who travels the world in a flying Dodge Dart powered by pixie dust and leftover chicken gristle. The kiddos leave out their colored marshmallows for ol’ Chuck, and in return, he leaves Dunkin’ Donuts coupons underneath a Chia Pet shaped like Chewbacca. On Saturday morning, the family goes out for bagels and crullers, and once back at the house, they gather ’round the living room and sing Thankseastermas carols, like “I’ll Be Home For Thankseastermas,” and “The Ballad of Acid Indigestion.” Festivities come to a close with the viewing of a holiday classic, “City Slickers II: The Search for Curly’s Gold.”
Maybe it needs a little work.
But the spirit is there. A laid-back, mid-level holiday, it helps bridge the gap between gray winter and glorious spring, while gradually weaning us off our built-up dependence on mythical creatures and idiosyncratic customs. Plus there’s marshmallows. I smell a winner.
The only problem, naturally, is that I lack the authority to implement the idea. With my magic wand on the fritz, I’ve got to rely on Gertrude’s generosity to get me through the rough stretch. Thankfully, a beer festival contains many trademarks of a typical holiday, including overindulgence, throngs of people, a disregard for one’s waistline, and the guarantee of future regret. Throw in a silly hat and all bases are pretty well covered.
It’s not Thankseastermas, but it’s something. This time of year, something is all we can ask for.
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