Monday, February 18, 2008

How are you spending 'Family Day'?

For people without a significant other or any relatives within reasonable driving distance, the double onslaught of Valentine's Day followed closely by Family Day must be a bitter pill to swallow. This time of year could start rivaling Christmas for loneliness and depression.

On the other hand those of you with families, but forced to work today must also be feeling a bit down and somewhat resentful. The holiday may have caused extra stress if you were forced to make alternate daycare plans for your young ones.

So, the question today is, how are you spending 'Family Day'? Obviously you're reading blogs. What else?

Are you prostrated with gratitude in front of a statue of Dalton? Or counting the ways that he's destroyed Ontario?

Grumbling that the local grocery and beer stores are closed?

Adding up the costs to your small business?

Or are you all just doing your own thing as usual?


* * * *
Update: We must not forget our friends in Alberta who also celebrate Family Day today! Peter Csillag ponders ponder the state of The Ever Dynamic Canadian Family.

Another province heard from - ChuckerCanuk: Happy Family Day, Ontario (and Alberta).

NDP pushes 'Family Day' as national holiday
- CTV.


19 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am working today and lamenting as to how it always seems the government finds more and more ways to reward the Ontario public sector at the expense of the private sector.

Unknown said...

I arrived at work today at my usual time 7:30am. The drive in to uptown Waterloo from Cambridge was nice. I'm now reading your blog while I take a coffee break. I have some big deadlines to meet by the end of March, so I'll be taking a lieu day when the heats off.

Anonymous said...

Doing the usual, my wife is gone to work and I'm doing laundry and watching the baby (I'm a stay at home dad).

Anonymous said...

We don't have a holiday in Quebec. I would like to see a John A. Macdonald/Wilfrid Laurier Day (Laurier/Macdonald Day), even though Macdonald's birthday is on January 10 and Laurier's on November 20th. None of this bland Family Day stuff.

Also we must be the only country in the world that names a holiday after a hanged traitor (Louis Riel Day in Manitoba). How did this get through?

By the way the A stands for Alexander!

Steve Stinson said...

Are the groceries stores really closed today? I was hoping to go grocery shopping. Guess I'll have to pick up a few things at Wal-Mart. It's always open.

Anonymous said...

At work today. No holiday for us socialist west coasters. The unions at my work already get 11 stats and are paid 2.5 times on 3 of them (2 are religious - Christmas and Good Friday -and "labour day!!"). We are SO politically correct out here.

VW said...

I'm also at work today. The federal government has designated this a floating holiday; we either take this one or the August civic holiday, and I opted for the one in August.

Presumably this may change the next time Treasury Board negotiates with the PS unions; implementation of this thing has been pretty much a cluster-eff.

Anonymous said...

I failed to pick up beer and wine yesterday as the government legislated Beer Stores were only open for five hours and I had to work and they're closed today so that leaves me no choice but to leave the country.
I'll cross the border later and buy a small case of beer and maybe a bottle of wine at the local Tops supermarket and hope that customs doesn't nail me on the way back.
If I was in Quebec I'd go to my corner store or in Alberta I might buy at the off-sales but here in Ontario I'm not allowed to do such things.
BTW, an 18 pack of Molson Canadian cans is selling for $11.99 at Tops this week.
Other than that I'll be spending the day with my family. We have a turkey in the oven as I type.
As an aside, I bought this twenty one pound turkey at the same Tops supermarket I'll be going to later and paid only six bucks for it. It was a special 25 cents a pound promotion. The US Border officer on the way over gave me a heads-up and told me not to buy two as Canadian Customs was charging duty on the second. We both had a chuckle over that one.
NeilD
Niagara Falls

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Cool Blue - At least you're spending the day with part of your family. :)

BTW, I think that's awesome that you're a Stay-at-home Dad!

Lord Kitchener's Own said...

Don't forget Saskatchewan! They get Family Day too!

Also, a quick shout out to our American friends! Happy President's Day.

For me, I'm spending the day laughing at all the "controversy" over Family Day in Ontario (roughly 1567 articles on this in the G&M in the last week!) It's amazing how fast we've switched gears from complaining that we didn't get the day off like the people of the U.S., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, to complaining that we do! I imagine most people are quite happy today (particularly the 70% of us who are off today!) but it's funny that among those that are complaining, roughly half are upset that we have the day off (given that joining the majority of jurisdictions in North America will apparently cause an economic apocalypse for us) and roughly half are fuming that they don't get the day off too (I hope this all comes up again on Easter Monday, while I'm sitting in my office!). So, seems like some sort of balance has been struck!

Good to see you're not hiding what side you're on Joanne. Given that I'm off, it would appear from your post that you think my options for spending this holiday are "battling my suicidal depression", "idolatry", "quiet fuming", "angry grumbling" or "lonely, isolated indifference". I had actually planned on just relaxing today, and maybe watching some movies (kinda rainy here), but now I feel as though perhaps I should be angry, or at least indignant while I do so.

I'd wish you a Happy Family day, but I'm scared that might give you an aneurysm.

:-)

Anonymous said...

nothing doing at my house today. Both parents working. One child away at post-secondary, and one doing homework.

Same old, same old.

The only bright spot today is that we're awaiting the arrival of a new family member in the USA. Father is from Ontario, mother American. A baby born on both President's Day and Family Day will satisfy both countries. Mom's in labour at this very moment.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

I'd wish you a Happy Family day, but I'm scared that might give you an aneurysm.

lol! No, I'm actually enjoying today. It's my IHTG's BD and he is quite pleased to be able to have the day off. Big family dinner tonight.


A baby born on both President's Day and Family Day will satisfy both countries. Mom's in labour at this very moment.

My best wishes to the whole family!

Swift said...

In a few minutes I will be doing just what I was doing yesterday afternoon: shovelling the latest dose of global warming. I have global warming piled up seven feet high and 25 feet wide beside my driveway.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Swift, I know. All this heat is so hard to take in February! I'm almost ready to turn on the A/C.

Anonymous said...

I'm doing the usual and I'd like to thank Dolton for reminding me that half my family is dead and the other half has moved to the US and UK.

Should have called it Heritage Day or maybe Promise Day - in honour of the one that Dolton kept.

Anonymous said...

I gotta tell you, the people out here in AB are laughing their assess off over all the whining coming out of ON.

Anonymous said...

We had a nice family day...and we didn't get the snow in NO that you SO's got!!
A walk in the bush, a visit to gramma's farm , then home to roast beef.
anon from AB...you might understand if you had the kind of provincial election that we had in the fall..anything that reminds me of Dalton is unsettling. So I took a day off thinking about Dalton.
And good luck with your provincials...GO WILDROSE ALLIANCE!!!

bluetech

OMMAG said...

Spent the day reading about what a psychotic Louis Riel was ... that and a murderer among other things.
Of course with the liberal's Bowdlerization of Canadian history we end up with him being made out a hero!
So 100% of all public employees in Manitoba have a day off in honour of their HERO!!

Candace said...

LKO, that was hilarious!

Joanne, most people I know in AB spend Family Day the same way they spend other non-religious long weekends - sleeping in, doing the odd jobs that never get done, catching up on housework or laundry, etc.

It's just a day off, and frankly, a welcome one in the middle of a cold global warming winter.