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capri0mniJust realized that today is my mother's birthday... she would have been 69 today.
She always had fun with birthdays. In fact, she started our family tradition of "Birthday Octaves," after she read that the Catholic Church celebrated certain saints' days for eight days. Her reasoning was that if it was good enough for saints, why shouldn't it be good enough for us?
Oh, yeah! Mom was fun to grow up with -- we were both stubborn in different ways, and we butted heads so often durning my growing up that I'm surprised we didn't end up with concussions. But she had a hutzpah and a sense of humor that always made life interesting.
Okay, so the way the Octave thing worked is this: The Celebration started on the eve of your birthday, and continued for the week after. So, say, your birthday fell on a Tuesday, the celebration would last from the Monday before through the Monday after.
As long as gifts, parties, cards and the like, arrived within that window of time, they were not late. And during your Octave, you were entitled to pass your chores onto someone else, take a little extra dessert, if you wanted it, get dibs on the TV, etc. Made a lot of sense, because there is always a weekend in an Octave, there was always time to have some kind of party, without worrying about staying up late on a school or work night. It also took some of the pressure off the day itself, in case Murphy's Law made it turn out crappy.
I've been trying to spread the idea/tradition around. But so far, no one's picked up on it. Since Pro-Fun Trolls live by the philosophy that it's always somebody's birthday, why don't we add "Spreading the Octave Tradition" to our mission?
Just a thought...
She always had fun with birthdays. In fact, she started our family tradition of "Birthday Octaves," after she read that the Catholic Church celebrated certain saints' days for eight days. Her reasoning was that if it was good enough for saints, why shouldn't it be good enough for us?
Oh, yeah! Mom was fun to grow up with -- we were both stubborn in different ways, and we butted heads so often durning my growing up that I'm surprised we didn't end up with concussions. But she had a hutzpah and a sense of humor that always made life interesting.
Okay, so the way the Octave thing worked is this: The Celebration started on the eve of your birthday, and continued for the week after. So, say, your birthday fell on a Tuesday, the celebration would last from the Monday before through the Monday after.
As long as gifts, parties, cards and the like, arrived within that window of time, they were not late. And during your Octave, you were entitled to pass your chores onto someone else, take a little extra dessert, if you wanted it, get dibs on the TV, etc. Made a lot of sense, because there is always a weekend in an Octave, there was always time to have some kind of party, without worrying about staying up late on a school or work night. It also took some of the pressure off the day itself, in case Murphy's Law made it turn out crappy.
I've been trying to spread the idea/tradition around. But so far, no one's picked up on it. Since Pro-Fun Trolls live by the philosophy that it's always somebody's birthday, why don't we add "Spreading the Octave Tradition" to our mission?
Just a thought...
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Date: 2003-04-08 09:41 am (UTC)Heh !
Date: 2003-04-08 10:35 am (UTC)