Let's Talk with Cheryl Hollon
Let’s Talk with Cheryl Hollon
February 27, 2020
An Extra Day
by Cheryl Hollon
It’s almost leap day!
It happens every four years. We get an extra day to balance out the untidiness between the actual time it takes our planet to make an orbit around the sun versus trying to keep seasonal sense by the cycles of our moon.
Some strange customs and traditions have been practiced on this day. The most well-known is the practice of alternative marriage proposals. In other words, women can propose marriage to men.
Bachelor’s Day is an Irish tradition on Leap Day allowing women to initiate dances and propose marriage.
In Scotland, it used to be considered unlucky for someone to be born on leap day, just as Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day by many.
Greeks consider it unlucky for couples to marry during a leap year, and especially on Leap Day.
In many European countries, especially in the upper classes of society, tradition dictates that any man who refuses a woman’s proposal on February 29 has to buy her 12 pair of gloves. The intention is that the woman can wear the gloves to hide the embarrassment of not having an engagement ring.
What are you going to do with this extra day?
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Posted in Let's Talk, with Cheryl Hollon • Tags: An Extra Day, BLB Discussion, Cheryl Hollon, Leap Day, Let's Talk | 11 Comments
Great question, Cheryl. This Saturday I’m spending time with family and being thankful to be among them. It is so easy to stay crazy busy. I’m counting this day as a gift to myself, and I’m fairly certain there will be at least one book involved. Happy Leap Year Day, everyone.
That’s a wonderful plan. I’m flying up from St. Petersburg to spend the weekend with my 93-year-old mom. She’s anxious to get the bag of books I bring every visit. I hope I’m still a voracious reader at her age.
Hmm…I’ve never looked at Leap Day as anything but an extra day in Feb. every four years. Now you’ve got me thinking that maybe I should plan something special for Saturday!
Great! My brother is having a party! I’m going to spend most of it snuggling with his huge puppy.
I hadn’t thought of using the extra day in a special way, but I’ll have to consider that! Maybe it’s a lucky day for me, since I always consider 13 my lucky number–I’m Ms. Opposite for lucky/unlucky stuff.
We’re lucky number sisters. I’ve had the best things come along on the 13th.
Cool!
Feb 29 is an extra day before I have to start working on taxes, LOL! Interesting about the gloves…makes me think back to Little Women, and how poor Meg had to share gloves with Jo at a party because Jo managed to spill lemonade on hers and they didn’t have spares. So they each wore one of Meg’s good gloves and carried one of Jo’s soiled gloves (and of course Jo stretched that glove past Meg’s ever wearing it again). I think Meg might have welcomed having a proposal rejected just to get a dozen nice pairs of gloves. 🙂
That’s funny. I can actually see the scheming that would have to be coordinated to get through those social quirks.
It’s Saturday and cold out so I am staying home and preparing for upcoming talks with handouts and PowerPoint. Then I need to get caught up on reading newsletters.
Saturday is almost over, but I used it to finish reading the final proofs for Three Treats Too Many. It was a delight having an unscheduled day. Now, I’m going to post the February winners for this blog!