If I had to pick a least favorite month of the year it'd be February. Fortunately it's also the shortest but it still doesn't make up for the dullness of it. February is the month that seems to linger on forever. Here the weather is usually cold, wet and gloomy, the days are getting longer but barely.
In the early Ancient Rome they didn't even have a name for winter months...the period from late December to February was just referred to as "winter"...that kind of reflects my way of seeing things too. February was the last month added to their calendar and for a long time it was the last month of the year. Romans were not sticklers for accurate calendars, months got shorter and longer to fit political needs...and sometimes the months were so unsynced with seasons that they had to add an "intercalaris", an intercalary month, which usually came after February.
The name "February" also comes from the Roman festival "Februa" which was a purification ritual before spring. This tradition somehow survived up until now in the form of Candlemas (Chandeleur in French) and Groundhog Day. It kind of proves my point that February is super boring and the Ancients had to come up with something to entertain themselves. Yay, we're halfway through winter...let's celebrate...
Talking of Candlemas, or Chandeleur...in France and part of Belgium, it means pancake day (pancakes, ok, maybe February is not so lame after all...). The tradition is that if you flip a "crêpe" while holding a coin in the other hand, you'll have money all year. You're also supposed to leave one of the pancakes on top of a kitchen cabinet all year but, for some reasons, most people skip that part.
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| Groundhog Day, Columbia Pictures |
And if you haven't seen Groundhog Day, the film...do you even know what Groundhog Day is? It's a festival in Pennsylvania, USA, where they publicly annoy a sleeping groundhog. If the groundhog sees its shadow, it means winter will last another 6 weeks...
It's a pretty cool movie...in which the main character keeps re-living the same day over and over again. Which is pretty much how I feel about February really...
