Holiday Pileup!

Even though February is the shortest month, it sure packs in the holidays. Let’s have a quick rundown, shall we? Take notes, August. This is how it’s done.

Though it’s not technically a holiday, we’ve already passed a Friday the 13th this month. Superstitious people believe this day to be bad luck, but to horror movie fans, it’s the release date of a new movie featuring a certain a hockey-mask-wearing killer stalking co-eds through the forest. And after you see the way that guy swings a machete, you quickly realize that nobody is safe from his wrath. Not even the trees. Our advice? “Run, Forest! Run!” You can spread the word and keep your personal PG-13 rating when you cover yourself with a 100% organic “Run, Forest! Run!” tee here: http://www.teehugger.com/product_p/thas1017_thjs1003.htm

After that came Valentine’s Day—a holiday best known as a celebration of love and candy. Of course, there are those who say that Valentine’s Day is an artificial “Hallmark holiday” designed just to sell cards and frilly pink trinkets. Those people may be right, but, statistically speaking, they’re also bitter, lonely spinsters. Hey, the numbers don’t lie, folks. Whether you believe in Valentine’s Day or not, you can take your sweetie on an ecologically sound date this February. Since men are from Mars and women are from Venus, we’ll take our green dating tips from aliens: http://www.itstheplanetdidiot.com/2008/05/zork-green-ti-3.html

For those of us here in the United States, there are three more holidays piled on in February. The first was Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on February 12. This year our 16th president turned 200 years old—that’s right, Abe is now a bicentennial man. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is celebrating Lincoln’s big two-oh-oh with a campaign to help Hoosiers save the planet and save Lincoln pennies. Read all about it here: http://www.andersonfreepress.net/node/15052

But Honest Abe isn’t the only president blowing out candles this month. President numero uno, George Washington, turns 277 years old on February 22, 2009. What do you get a man who has everything (and has been dead for over two hundred years)? If you know your Washington lore, the answer is pretty obvious: a tree. When he was just a dumb kid, George famously chopped down his father’s cherry tree and then immediately copped to it, saying, “I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet.” Of course, most modern historians consider this tale to be apocryphal, but that’s beside the point. The point is, none of us should be cutting down trees with our little hatchets. In fact, we should be planting new ones. That’s why the Nature Conservancy started the Plant a Billion Trees program. For just one dollar per tree, they are working to repopulate the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Give George the gift of reforestation at: http://www.plantabillion.org/

And, because we love a month chock full of holidays, we Americans also celebrate Abe and George together on Presidents’ Day, February 16. This year Lincoln is rolling out the green carpet to the President Lincoln and Soldiers' Home National Monument. “A $15 million rehabilitation gives the public access to the most significant historic site directly associated with Abraham Lincoln's presidency aside from the White House, and to an important demonstration of how sustainable design principles can guide historic preservation.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS145427+18-Feb-2008+BW20080218)

Whew! That’s a lot of holidays! At least this year has no Leap Day...