Family Day?
What did you do on Family Day? Did you go out and skate at one of our public skating rinks with your family? Did you go out with family and friends to a restaurant for lunch or dinner? Or did you simply go out to a movie with your family?
Family Day was a big event around town. I went out for some local all you can eat sushi for lunch. The place normally has a few tables of dress suit type people during the regular office day lunch hour. But on Family Day it was packed with families and a few groups of students who haven’t been part of the exodus called Reading Week.
It all seemed somewhat overwhelming to me. I hadn’t seen so many people out before on a Monday. As we were leaving the establishment another family was entering. One of the young children held the door open for me. I thanked the youth and then he said, “Happy Family Day.” I was a little thrown by this. To my surprise, my friend experienced something similar that morning. The family across the hall from his apartment bumped into him in the hallway and wished him a Happy Family Day as well. He was thrown back as well. This is only the 2nd year Ontario has had this Family Day. In all truth, I never thought much of this new holiday. It seemed to be a lovely excuse to have a 3 day weekend.
After lunch, my friend and I took a drive downtown. We noticed the massive crowds at the public skating rink behind town hall. We did a double take wondering if there was some special event going on such as a hockey tournament or some famous figure skater. There wasn’t. The crowd had gathered to simply ice skate. All these families, gathered to ice skate.
Is it possible that there is something to this Family Day? I can only assume there was a need for families to get together in mid-February to simply share something special. Gladly, this day doesn’t involve torturous productions that we force ourselves to endure during other family type events (I’m talking Turkey here!).
This is the birth of a new tradition in Kingston. This is the new tradition of families and people coming out of their warm little homes to enjoy the day and company of each other. I am very glad to have experienced this. Now if only the businesses in Kingston can figure out if they are going to be open or closed this day.
As a federal employee, I was working on Family Day. No sour grapes though, as we certainly get enough holidays over the year. It was eerie walking downtown and seeing stores closed, few people about, including the students. Seemed a bit like Christmas Day.