Happy Holiday!

So my favorite holiday is Leif Eriksson day. Now, when I tell most people this, they just laugh and assume I am kidding around. Well, they don't usually laugh, because, were it a joke, it would be a lame joke. Why would I choose such an obsure holiday as my favorite? Well Spongebob did it, and anything Spongebob does is okay in my book. Well, not everything. That creepy thing he does with the arms and the dancing. And the absorbency. Anyways, Spongebob is not the reason I love Leif Eriksson day.
Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, Hanukkah these are all among people's favorite holidays. But on these days, there is so much stress, to make sure everything goes right, to live up to expectations set by holidays past. Not to mention the stress of seeing relatives who you may or may not be on good terms with. Except Halloween, I guess that only applies to theother ones.
Unless you live in a place where Leif Eriksson day is widely observed (Minnesota) there are no established traditions for celebrating it. Hell, no one is really even sure how to spell the last name correctly. As a result, there are no expectations to live up to! You can have a shitty time and it won't matter, because you don't really expect it to be different from any other day!
Now, some people might bring up some other pseudoholidays with similar properties. Memoprial day, Veterans Day, Arbor Day, MLK day. These holidays are great. Sometimes you even get to take off school. But they all have catches. It's hard to have a good time on Memorial day when yo uare supposed to be cherishing the memories of the fallen. Or caring about the planet. Or the civil rights struggle.
Sure, you can remember Leif Eriksson's brave, sort-of accomplishment. He was the first European in America, and then he left, leaving little to no lasting impact. Not much to celebrate, but not much to feel bad about. He really didn't do much, and neither should you on his day!
But what about St.Patrick's day? Most people don't even know who St.Patrick was, or what he did, they just use it as an excuse to get drunk. I suppose this is a pretty good holiday, if you like binge drinking and vomit. And there are still silly traditions like pinching people who aren't wearing green. What the hell is that about?
Don't even get me started on Valentine's day. If you are in a relationship, it is one more chance for your relationship to be disrupted if someone doesn't get a gift. If you're single, well, then it's basically an entire season devoted to making you feel like a pariah.
Plus, Leif Eriksson day is one of the few legitimate excuses to wear a Viking helmet.