Greetings this Holiday Season!

Tomorrow is the Ides of March. Celebrate with a glass of red wine and a reading of the last act of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Wednesday is St. Urho's Day. All Finns will be found wearing purple and spearing grasshoppers, should they be living where grasshoppers may be found.

Most Finns are in Florida by now, but those of us left in Northern States and Nordic countries will be pulling bags of them [us=Finns/ them=grasshoppers], saved for the occasion, out of the freezer. Thawing is not necessary. Just fork 'em and throw 'em over your shoulder. Don't forget the requisite incantation, though I will. It's lame.

Grasshopper effigies are also beaten with sticks. Anybody know the Finnish word for pinata?

Some question whether St. Urho's Day is the day before or the day after St. Patrick's Day. The answer is to be found in the fact that St. Urho was created out of whole cloth 50 years ago as an expression of a wave of Finnish chauvinism ("soovinisema" in Finnish--prove me wrong!) - which, of course, came late to the New World - therefore the celebration must be held the day before.

And you all know what to do on St. Patrick's Day. I'm part Irish too.

Anybody know the Finnish for "Always after me Lucky Charms!"