Calkins Day on a Budget

By Ed Calkins, the Steward of Tara


In this day and age, many of you, as you are getting ready for Calkins Day,( February, 13), may be finding a lack of resources in your budget. So, I have some suggestions on how you might celebrate the holiday without going too far into debt.

1) Pre-gift. Go out and buy yourself some thing you would like to receive on Valentine's Day. Give it to your spouse on Calkins day. Your spouse in turn will give it back to you on Valentine's Day.

2) Make up a country. Use your imagination to create a nation then ruthlessly take it over. You could do this as a family over Calkins Day dinner. Decide which of your children to appoint cabinet posts and how you would misappropriate public funds and abuse public power with the use of insults and limericks. Then make the least ruthless cabinet member do the dishes after meal.

3) Have your own parade. This is something you can also do with the family. Line up in a single file and walk around the house saying absurd or meaningless things in a voice twice as loud as conversational tone. It doesn't have to be a long parade. If you are the mayor of a large city you might copy what they were planning on in Chicago. Because of a lack of funds, the mayor was intending to have a parade a few days early, like the Monday or Tuesday after the Super Bowl. To spare the expense, he was going to invite the Chicago Bears to join the parade. By the way, the 'C' on the helmets stands for "Calkins". Unfortunately, Green Bay canceled these plans.