Groundhog day is a wonderful holiday not just for its cute animal mascot but it brings together a community of people who have been celebrating this strange holiday for generations.
How this funny day came to be is a little different. There may be different iterations of the story but the main one that goes around the most is, many years back a badger — yes a badger not a groundhog as the name would suggest — would immerse from the ground and would cast a shadow which would bring four to six more weeks of winter they said.
Until the 18th century they would abandon the badger and make the mascot a groundhog. But back then the tradition wouldn’t just end there after the groundhog would come out they would eat the poor animal saying that his meat was tender and good.
Soon the tradition of eating the poor fellow would get retired and they would give the animal a name — “Phill” short for king Phill. The ways they have celebrated since then have been the same.
There would be a movie named after the holiday starring Bill Murray as the leading role, and in the movie he would continue living the same day which would be groundhogs day. This would bring further popularity to the holiday.
This holiday may have given so much confidence to so many other named holidays that we may not know about. Like Fruitcake Toss day, which is you doing as the name says to toss out your old fruit cake as a sign of the new year. Another would be May the 4th, which is a little play on the famous quote from star wars “may the force be with you” and this day is widely known as Star Wars day so all the die hard fans can celebrate their favorite sci fi genre.
Lastly which would be one of the strangest holidays is National Squirrel Appreciation day, which is you going outside and showing your fellow squirrels why they matter. Those are just some of a very big category of our weird holidays we celebrate.
Maybe one day you can make one as well.