February is here! Our month-long January break from holidays are over, as with the coming of the second month of the year comes a very special day where we celebrate the people we love.
But before that though, we need to watch a fat rodent play meteorologist.
For the longest time, I never questioned the tradition of Groundhog Day. I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, only a few hours away from Punxsutawney, so it was impossible to ignore anything about the holiday. I remember in elementary school we took time out of class every February 2nd to talk about the famed groundhog. Punxsutawney Phil was a for real celebrity in the class. I remember reading picture books about him and watching cartoons about him. His predictions about whether or not spring would come early were always taken 100% seriously (honestly, we always wanted his shadow to appear just for the slim hope that there would be extra snow days). I especially remember every year at least one person asking why we do not get Groundhog Day off. In fact, he's so big that the Pennsylvania Lottery mascot, a groundhog named Gus, claims he's the "second most famous groundhog in Pennsylvania," because no one would dare claim to be higher than the almighty Phil.
This holiday was such a big part of my life for almost twenty years, so it is easy to forget that not everyone feels the same way. Just the other day, I saw a post wondering if Groundhog Day was a real thing or just something Americans made up as a joke.
It is a little embarrassing to say I felt personally affronted for a second. Are you saying this is a joke? That watching this little animal predict the end or continuation of winter based off of whether or not it is sunny out or not is not completely believable?? As a red-blooded Pennsylvanian citizen, I cannot believe I have to stand for this vicious slander!
But then two seconds later it came to me that maybe to an outsider, it is a little weird.
Looking back on the history of Groundhog Day, apparently it started as an ancient Christian tradition called Candlemas, where candles were given out by the clergy. Their length represented how long the winter season was. German folks decided to take this tradition and do it their own way, by taking a hedgehog and using it to predict the length of winter. When they came over to Pennsylvania, they found that the hedgehog population was not nearly as abundant, so they switched to groundhogs instead. So we went from candles to groundhogs. The human species is amazing!
So to summarize, Groundhog Day is ultimately a holiday where the United States puts its faith not in highly trained meteorologists, but a little groundhog, because there were not enough hedgehogs in Pennsylvania. A little strange, but ultimately harmless, and actually pretty fun. And at least we got a funny Bill Murray movie out of it.
