To my mind, Easter isn't one of the big holidays. I mean, I know that Jesus rose from the dead and that's obviously huge. But from a celebratory standpoint, it's pretty lame.

Who's saying that Easter is their favourite holiday? Christmas is the clear 800 pound gorilla of holidays.

Let's rank the holidays. It's tough because there's no good list. I'm only going to deal with American ones because that's what I know. But I can't find a good list. I'll just go with this questionable one from here:

http://www.usa.gov/citizens/holidays.shtml

I'm mostly going by childhood celebrations because I never really did anything as an adult.

1. Christmas. This is an obvious one. You get gifts. And there's like a month buildup with the tree and decorations and tv shows and whatnot. And there's a meal which I don't really care about but it should be mentioned.

2. Thanksgiving. It's a huge drop off between one and two. Thanksgiving is literally just a meal.

3. Halloween. I guess as a kid this might be number two but I was never hugely into it. You got a bunch of candy. That's the only part I enjoyed. Dressing up and going out...not so much. And I just went with my mother or sister until I was like...12 or 13 when I went with a friend. And by then I was too old to be doing this anyway.

4. Easter. This wasn't even on that list. They didn't want to offend non-Christians which is odd because they didn't mind including Christmas. Weird and unhygenic egg decorating isn't so fun but you get candy without having to dress like an idiot and go door to door. Not that much candy, though. A plastic basket of stuff and a hollow bunny.

5. Independence Day. It's just fireworks. Either a public display which is really boring or a backyard display which is moderately less boring because there's always the risk that you're going to lose some fingers. Also, the less gifted among us would light fireworks for a good month before July 4 which was unpleasant if you happened to be walking past such dullards. Oh, and there are really boring parades.

6. Valentine's Day. We all know what Valentine's Day is but as a kid, my parents would get us some candy and a toy. I don't know how wide-spread this was. I mentioned this to a friend of mine at the time and he thought it was strange. He killed himself a few years ago.

7. New Years Day. We're really getting into the dregs now. It's nothing. You try to stay up until midnight. If you fail, who cares? Even as a hip young adult, what is it? You go out and touch a boob or something at midnight? Who cares? I don't want to do this.

8. St Patricks Day. This wasn't on the list either which is odd because it's pretty big in the US. I don't remember anybody wearing green on this day like in that Simpsons episode. Basically, it's nothing. There's a parade in Chicago and Boston (which both have a large Irish population) and there's a lot of drinking, I guess, but nothing of interest for children.

The rest of this list are complete non-entities and presented in no particular order.

- Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Nobody celebrates this. Not even black people as far as I'm aware. I think you get the day off from school and maybe some government jobs.

- Washington's Birthday. As above but I thought that Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday were combined into Presidents' Day where you have to celebrate all presidents, even the really shit ones. I think it falls, coincidentally, on Washington's birthday, though.

- Memorial Day. I don't even know what it is. It's about World War II, I think. Again, you get the day off school and possibly work assuming that you work for certain government agencies. I say this because private employers aren't required to give days off for these government holidays so they don't.

- Labor Day. This holiday was created to remove the political message of May Day. It doesn't take place on May Day but it replaced that holiday in the US. I don't know if you get a day off of school and perhaps semi-ironically, it's the same job situation. Most people have to work this day.

- Columbus Day. Nobody does anything for this and I don't think it's even a day off for anyone but it might be.

- Veterans Day. Once again, a day off school/government jobs but nothing else. If Memorial Day is about WWII, I guess this is for all veterans. Actually, maybe Memorial Day is for dead soldiers of any war. I don't think so, though. Anyway, a day to honour veterans. Peacetime too? Who knows or cares?

- Groundhog Day. Reporters go to Pennslyvania or somewhere to film a groundhog and the mayor dresses up like he's from the 18th century for some reason. Nobody cares about any of this and no days off.

- Earth Day. Created in the 70s, I think. Something about not polluting and whatever. Total joke.

- Arbor Day. I didn't even think that this still existed. Something about planting trees. I don't know. Eclipsed by Earth Day. And nobody celebrates Earth Day so Arbor Day is even less regarded than that.

- Mother's Day. You buy something for your mother and/or make a card.

- Flag Day. I didn't think that this existed any more either. A day to fly the American flag. That's it.

- Father's Day. Same as Mother's Day but for one's father.

- Patriot Day. I never even heard of this. The website says that it's about September 11th.

- Pearl Harbor Day. I never heard of this either but it apparently had like a 60 year head start on "Patriot Day".

So yeah, all holidays are lame and I'm not missing anything by not celebrating.