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A time to celebrate… Whatever

By G.D.

By G.D. Maxwell

Whatever you may think of our cousins to the south – those people who inhabit the United States of America and have usurped the generic term "Americans" to so exclusive a degree nobody else on either of the continents bearing the name can use it – you have to give them credit for one thing. They have managed to create a long weekend holiday when one is so desperately needed: February.

While I’ve always enjoyed the shortest, darkest month, containing as it does the twin traumas of both Valentine’s Day and my birthday, I fully understand why a majority of people, especially Canadians, voted it Suicide Prevention Month. February can suck. February, short as it is, cries out for a holiday.

Canada, country of winter, home of hockey, land of frozen expanses, Sergeant Preston – may he rest in peace – igloos and block heaters, has failed miserably to devise an official holiday to celebrate that which, to an extent far beyond anything in the fabric of history, defines the culture Canadians try so hard to protect. Clearly, Canada should have first dibs on any winter holiday in the Western Hemisphere. Winter is to Canada what the right to bear arms is to the US: inalienable, absolute, seminal, indelible. Winter forged all that followed in the True North Brrrave and Free.

Except for North Dakota, which may as well be a part of Manitoba for all Americans care about it, and Alaska, a garage sale purchase from a cash-starved Russia, winter in the coldest parts of the States would be considered bikini weather in Regina. And in many parts of the USofA, winter is tropical enough to lure sun-starved Canucks by the hundreds of thousands who have, in turn, infected Florida, Arizona and Southern California with professional hockey teams, our greatest cultural export.

To let the US beat Canada to the punch in proclaiming a winter long weekend is a shame too long allowed to go unanswered. The problem, of course, is that we can’t think of or agree to any one thing to celebrate. It was easy for the Americans to hammer together the birthdays of two of their most revered presidents and give the nation a day off on the third Monday in February.

For years, the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington were troublesome. I mean, unless you’re Canadian, you can’t not celebrate the birth of the Father of your Country. It’s just not done. And Abraham Lincoln reached into the raging fires of separation and civil war, held the country together and then selflessly gave his life so that every man who followed might have a good excuse for not accompanying his wife to the theatre when he could, as easily, stay home and watch Monday Night Football.

But their birthdays were just too close to each other: February 12 and 22. In a month so short the other months make fun of it, how could you celebrate two presidents and Valentine’s Day? It took the genius of time to solve the riddle: Put them both together and make one good one.

Unfortunately, while blessed with an abundance of winter in Canada, we are not so blessed with the coincidence of timing or, for that matter, two great men we can all agree to celebrate. In fact, therein lies the problem. Canadians can’t agree on anything at all, let alone what to celebrate in February.

I guess we simply celebrate winter. But many might argue that’s both cruel and cliché. And many more in Quebec would consider any talk of a winter holiday as a nationalistic plot to steal the thunder from Carnaval de Québec.

But if our pluralism and unwillingness to push strongly held opinions on others is at the root of inaction, it may also hold the solution. We should set aside a day in February – and not the third Monday; after all, we’re not like the Americans – as a carnival of... of whatever. The Winter Celebration of Whatever. A truly Canadian holiday. Make of it what you will. No pressure, mate.

This nondescript compromise would not only forestall any objections, except for the pedantic few who might argue we’re celebrating nothing (well, duh), and may even, in its fuzzy lack of definition, foster ever-elusive Canadian Unity.

Think of it, a holiday defined on a local, even personal level. A holiday that could be celebrated in a different way every year. A holiday that would appease the festering slights felt by groups across Canada who always wanted a day to recognize their cause or heritage but never imagined it might come true. A Winter Holiday for all Canadians.

Canadians in the Maritimes could join each other in a Have-Not Celebration of Whatever where they might stand around and do, well, nothing. Conversely, small groups of Newfoundlanders could declare the day a provincial holiday to celebrate the daring exploits of brave men who, at great personal risk of hangover, drink rye and humanely club seals to death with spiked baseball bats to protect a cherished way of life. The concept is that flexible.

Separatists in Quebec could celebrate the day, falling as it may in the middle of Winter Carnival, by leaving. Perhaps for a day of cross-border shopping in Plattsburg’s quaint Village of Factory Outlets. English Quebec might, ironically, use the holiday to celebrate stubbornly staying put.

In Toronto, people could do what they always do on holidays, go to work.

It would be in the Prairies the Celebration of Winter Whatever would find its truest voice. These are, after all, people of winter. The Prairies is where the quintessential Canadian winter activity – denial – has been raised to an art form. Many would sit around holes in the ice, trying to catch frozen fish and miss the mosquitoes that usually keep them company while fishing. Some would skate, others hold street parties and barbeques. The Métis would finally have a holiday to honour Louis Riel.

In Alberta, thousands would joyously give thanks for their rise in fortunes as oil once again fuels their dreams of Eastern Bastards freezing in the dark.

From patios of coffee bars all over the Lower Mainland, people would use their cell phones to call friends back in whatever province they moved West from to ask them how they celebrated and lie about how much they miss winter now that they don’t have to shovel it anymore.

And in Whistler, where every day is a holiday, we’d go skiing and lose track of this one too.

Get with it, Canada.