FLAGDAY.EXE OVERLOAD.

This Week in… Everything? A Holiday Hodgepodge for the Chronically Online (and Offline, I Guess)

Okay, look. My feed is screaming. Not the usual doomscroll variety, but a cascade of vaguely celebratory… stuff. Apparently, a whole lotta days have flags attached to them this week. And honestly? Keeping track feels like a mid-90s warez scene challenge – decode the acronyms, navigate the regional variations, then remember why you’re even celebrating.

So, for those of us who spend more time optimizing boot sequences than, y’know, living, here’s a quick and dirty rundown of what’s happening between now and the end of the year. Buckle up.

It all kicked off yesterday with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women – a seriously important one. Today, the 27th, we're looking at Thanksgiving (US federal & state holiday, obviously). Then it's Black Friday, because capitalism. Also, Maryland and Washington state are throwing a little love for American Indian Heritage Day – good on ‘em.

Things get weirdly dense after that. We’ve got UN observances for solidarity with Palestine, remembrance for chemical warfare victims, and a bunch more. Wyoming folks get a Nellie Tayloe Ross birthday thing going on. Then Advent starts. Seriously, look it up. It's a lot.

December is… ambitious. World AIDS Day and Cyber Monday collide on the 1st. Then it’s a whirlwind of Rosa Parks Day (Alabama & Ohio), abolition of slavery, GivingTuesday, days for persons with disabilities, banks, volunteers, soil (yes, soil) and St. Nicholas. I’m starting to suspect the UN just throws dates at a calendar and hopes something sticks.

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (and Delaware Day, for the Delaware-inclined) falls on the 7th, alongside a whole bunch of other observances. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day predictably dominate the calendar, with the Day After Christmas getting a nod in a few states. Kwanzaa kicks off on the 26th.

The final stretch is… intense. We're looking at a whole cluster of days for epidemic preparedness, human solidarity, the winter solstice, Chanukah ending, Bill of Rights Day, migrants, Arabic language, and eventually, New Year's Eve. Several states are still treating New Year’s Eve like it’s 1999, with actual days off.

Look, I'm not saying you need to meticulously observe all of these. I barely remember to reboot my router. But a little awareness of what’s going on beyond the endless scroll? Maybe that’s a good thing. Or maybe I just need to disconnect and go back to optimizing kernel panics. Either way, happy… everything?