3

Killing Winter

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If you're reading this in mid-January in the Northern Hemisphere, you're probably sick of winter already. And that sucks, because this dumb cold weather goes on for at least two more months. By that time, depending on where you live, you'll be even more tired of scraping ice off your car, or ending work when it's already pitch black outside, or doing whatever they do in winter in Florida, trying to move torpid alligators out of your living room with a broom, I guess. Whatever your winter frustrations, there's one good way to vent your feelings at the season: by destroying its symbolic representation in the most disturbing ways possible.

peupleloup/Wiki Commons
No, not that.

And that's exactly what they do in some other parts of the world. In Slovakia, for example, a representation of the ancient Slavic goddess of winter is symbolically drowned at the end of March. First, Slovaks construct a straw figurine and dress it in female clothes. Then, if no nearby Swedes set fire to it beforehand, the crowd marches the effigy to a river and throws it in. Maybe they yell, "TAKE YOUR FUCKING ROAD SALT CORROSION WITH YOU," as it floats away, I don't know.

Via Tumblr
"ENOUGH OF ALL THE PEPPERMINT-FLAVORED SHIT AS WELL."

2

Reverse Groundhog Day

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You might only know about Groundhog Day because you saw the movie where Bill Murray is splashed with groundhog blood and then has to fight groundhogs again and again with not even death as an escape until he finally defeats their leader. But the Groundhog Day tradition has actually been around since the 19th century, all thanks so a supposedly immortal groundhog from Pennsylvania named Punxsutawney Phil, who, the Pennsylvanians tell us, can predict the weather. At the Groundhog Day festival at the start of February, officials carry out a wooden burrow containing the all-powerful Phil and release the groundhog. If the handlers judge that Phil "sees his shadow," that means at least six more weeks of continuing winter weather ahead. If he doesn't, the tail-end of winter is going to be milder than average.

karl umbriaco/iStock/Getty Images
And yet keeping groundhogs in my basement to help me bet on sporting events is "animal cruelty."

1

Christmas to Candlemas Decoration Marathon

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As that song with all the birds implies, the Christmas season used to have 12 days, ending in early January. This period is known as Christmastide, and many church groups still celebrate the season according to this tradition. Other Christmas-practicing people will tell you that the Christmas season actually lasts until the start of February, and only ends at Candlemas, a feast celebrating the Virgin Mary's purification in the temple after giving birth (and also candles, apparently).

Digital Vision./Photodisc/Getty Images
Not Man Candles, though. The devil made those.

Whatever the exact ending date, the basics are the same: Christmas starts on the 25th of December and goes from there. But in recent years, all that has changed. Rather than starting on the 25th and lasting until early January or February, the "Christmas season" now starts in late October and cuts off right as the clock strikes midnight on the 26th. This change started in the nation's consumer centers: stores want us to buy gifts for each other, and a good way to make us do that is to fill stores with Christmas stuff as early as possible. Nobody buys Christmas gifts after the 25th, so that's when the music stops and the decorations come down.

All that is perfectly understandable: stores exist to sell things, after all. But somehow this "Christmas starts early and ends early" thing has trickled down to the general population as well. Now, people who haven't pulled down their lawn decorations a few days or weeks after Christmas are considered "slackers" and are told to "get your act together" and to "please take down that giant half-burned snowman effigy on your lawn, it is giving my children nightmares."

Barbara Penoyar/Photodisc/Getty
Little wimps.

I'm OK with stores ending their Christmas stuff on the 26th. If they didn't do this, the Christmas shopping season would gradually drift outward in both directions until it swallowed itself like an Ouroboros, and all we'd ever hear when we stepped into a mall would be Wham! But we really should accept that the way we decorate our homes for Christmas these days makes no sense.

First, we're putting our trees up so early that a week before Christmas Eve it's already a dried-out mold-husk covered in flammable, dead pine needles. Second, taking down one's decorations right away ensures we are living through the coldest, darkest months in dreary, light-free misery. We waste all these pretty decorations when it's barely even cold yet, and then go through the next three slushy months without so much as a blinking LED deer display. So don't be afraid to buck the trend and leave up your Santa toilet-seat cover for as long as you damn like.

Via Imperial Home
Preferably all year.

C. Coville has a Twitter here and a funny book on sale here.

For more from C. Coville, check out 6 American Characters In Foreign Films (Tested for Accuracy) and 4 Mind-Blowing Theories About Famous Lines in the Bible.

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