“I don’t care what we’re celebrating, are you supposed to get shitty? Yes? GOOD.”
~America
As we’ve been seeing the past couple of days, America has shitload of Holidays. There are national holidays, and there are the “lesser” holidays that aren’t nationally observed, but still get people out of work sometimes. However, sometimes you have to work on a Holiday, and while that’s unfortunate, it’s more than made up for the fact that these holidays are little more than veiled excuses to drink heavily.
Pictured above: Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day
So it is with this in mind that we delve into the last subset of American holidays- the American holidays that don’t give you a day off, but are nationally celebrated. As always, these are ranked from least-to-most American.
Earth Day/Arbor Day: April 22nd/Last Friday in April
…You’re…you’re fucking with us, right? Why the shit would we want to celebrate a day for Trees!? FUCK. NATURE. How many times do we have to say that? Really, insisting that we include Earth Day and Arbor Day on this list just tells us when we should go out and start extra forest fires, because we might catch some hippies up in the whole thing too. Do you know how much money we have spent to hire bounty hunters to help us track and kill extremely endangered animals? A lot more than you would expect for something that you never even thought that people did until today. The only reason we don’t list “poacher” under our hobbies is that we prefer the term “exterminators”. Seriously, fuck Earth Day.
Cinco De Drinko Mayo: May 5th
Why is this holiday American? Well…you know, booze. The relationship between Cinco de drinko Mayo and America is a tenuous one, but not as tenuous as you would think. Remember how America likes to take the best things out of other cultures, steal the shit out of them, and make them our own? “Fuck yes, AFFotD,” you’re probably saying, “I’m eating a deep fried Chalupa wrapped in an entire goddamn pizza that’s been doused in French dressing right the fuck now.”
Haa, holy shit
And that…damn, really? You doused that fucker in dressing? Anyway, yes, that is what we’re talking about. Cinco de Mayo is such an unimportant Mexican Holiday in the grand scheme of things that most people assume, “It’s like, Mexico’s Fourth of July?” when really it’s just to celebrate winning a battle. One battle. Like a hundred and fifty years ago. As a result, the holiday means very little in Mexico, yet in America it’s a big goddamn deal. And by “big goddamn deal” we mean let’s do another shot of Patron! WOOOOOOOOOOO!
Si.
And so, Cinco de Mayo is a surprisingly American holiday, if for no other reason than the fact that true Americans have a 50% chance of waking up in their bed at 11AM the next morning with their shoes still on and a series of mysterious cuts and bruises all over their bodies. God bless America.
Flag Day: June 14th (huh, really?)
If American Holidays were children in a large family, Flag Day would be MaCaulay Culkin in Home Alone and Home Alone 2. Yes, he’s an important member of the family, but it’s very easy to forget that he’s there. Everyone knows about Flag Day, but it’s the sort of holiday that catches you by surprise until you flip your day-by-day calendar and you go, “Oh, right, that’s today.” Only one type of person actively “celebrates,” Flag Day, and they’re the type that throws parties where they hand out American Flag lapel pins and watch the musical 1776.
“It’s Flag day, we gon’ get silly.”
But they do get points for celebrating something as American as a Flag. So long as they get good and drunk.
April Fool’s Day: April 1st (the day when you discover who’s funny versus who doesn’t know how a prank works)
We’ve already covered the American glory that is April Fool’s Day on, well, last April Fool’s Day. This holiday, again, does not really lead to a lot of booze, but it does lead to a bunch of crazy hijinks, which is the second most American type of tomfoolery (first would be flim flams, of course.) Beside, if Americans did drink heavily on April Fool’s Day, you’d have to imagine that a lot of urine would be mistakenly consumed, so April first sobriety is probably for the best. There’s not much to say about April Fool’s Day that hasn’t already been said, so we’ll just continue on.
Mardi Gras: Some Tuesday in March or February
We don’t like Grizzly bears but we respect how they operate. They eat the shit out of everything they can find and then they hibernate in the winter. That’s why Mardi Gras is so great. Fat Tuesday. Basically, all the Catholics in America are going to have to give up unhealthy American things they love for 40 days, so the day before everyone bands together and celebrates with just…basically nudity and alcohol. This is nothing more than an excuse to get wasted on a Tuesday in a socially acceptable environment. That’s the American Dream right there.
Super Bowl Sunday: First Sunday in February
We love the fact that this is listed on Wikipedia as a national holiday. We fucking love it. And as much as we want to make fun of that fact, we can’t. Saying that football isn’t American is like saying that getting sloppy drunk while eating chips and dip on a Sunday isn’t American. Which is to say, if you think either of those things aren’t American you can just get out. We’ve killed for less. Don’t test us, a few of our staff members haven’t had anything to drink in almost two days (stupid in-car breathalyzers, grumble).
The Super Bowl, which has been covered by the esteemed writers of AFFotD, might be considered too much of a “pop culture phenomenon” to be considered a holiday. Its detractors might point out that all the Super Bowl consists of is watching giant, sweaty millionaires smash into and injure other giant, sweaty millionaires. To which we would reply….”Are you not entertained!?”
I AM FAVRICUS!
The Super Bowl is such an event that companies actually figure out how much money they lose in sick days and unproductive, hungover workers, and the figure is actually remarkably high. Like, over a billion dollars. It’s probably not the only day in America where drinking is responsible for a billion dollar blow to the economy…but that doesn’t make that any less American, now does it?
St. Patrick’s Day: March 17th
St. Patrick’s Day has everything you’d ever want from an American holiday. Vaguely offensive ethnic representations? Check. Dangerous amounts of alcohol consumption? Check. A sort of “any story you hear about it, you will believe” aura to it? Check and check. Example- an AFFotD staff member once picked up a bloody tote bag they found on the street, just because it had 6 fresh beers in there. And he drank the beer. Does that sound like we made it up, or does it sound strangely plausible for St. Patrick’s Day? Exactly.
The true beauty of St. Patrick’s Day, however, is that it is celebrated several times in a year. If St. Patrick’s Day happens to fall on a weekday, then you celebrate on St. Patrick’s Day, and on the Saturday of St. Patrick’s Day. It’s brilliant. It’s reckless, alcohol consumption wise. And, despite being all about Ireland, it’s…it’s strangely American.
America Fun Fact of the Day 
This blog was… how do I say it? Relevant!! Finally I’ve found something which helped me.
Many thanks!