Christmas is Right Around the Corner!

I think I've just set a new record for me. It's not even the end of September yet, and this morning I started planning for the Christmas season. Usually, Christmas doesn't even show up on my radar until around mid-December. Sure, I hear other people talking about it and can't escape from it in malls and stores, but the extent of any actual planning I've ever had to do in the past was buying gifts, which rarely happened before the couple weeks leading up to Christmas.

Happy 1st of July!

I bet you thought that title looked odd. Well it does to me, too. How many Canadians do you ever hear talking about the 1st of July? Aside from people referring to the specific calendar date, of course. We all talk about our nation's birthday as Canada Day.

Yet for some reason, I rarely hear Americans talk about the Independence Day holiday. They talk about the 4th of July. Stores have 4th of July Long Weekend Sales. Out-of-office email notifications say they're away celebrating the 4th of July. Cities advertise their 4th of July festivities. Even the Wikipedia page starts with, "Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July..."

But why that is, I can't say. It just strikes me as odd, since in general I've observed Americans to be very patriotic people. I would have expected them to be proudly stating that this is the day they gained their independence. So why wouldn't they always refer to their nation's birthday as Independence Day?