Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Leap Year!

Did you know (before today) that this year was a Leap Year? I'd heard rumors, but let's be honest, I pay considerably more attention to the weather, the class schedule at the gym, and the preschool "upcoming events" emails than I do the actual date on the calendar.

Leap Day, or Leap Year Day, is an extra day added to the calendar every four years in order to synchronize our calendar and seasonal years. Without Leap Day, in 136 years we'd be ice skating in July and sunbathing in January. Well, WE wouldn't be ice skating or sunbathing, but our great, great, great grandchildren could be ice skating and sunbathing. (And don't repeat that "136 years" statistic...I just made that up. 136 years seemed like the amount of time it would take for the seasons to swap ends of the calendar.)

While performing my Leap Year "research" I came across a few interesting folk traditions associated with Leap Day/Year (thank you, Wikipedia):

- In the British Isles, women could only propose marriage during a leap year. If the man refused the proposal, he was required to compensate the woman with a payment ranging from a kiss to a silk gown. I hardly think a silk gown would improve my mood after being rejected by the love of my life.

- In Denmark, women could propose marriage on the bissextile leap day - February 24th - and refusal of the proposal required the man to give the woman 12 pairs of gloves. Well, that seems fair. 12 pairs of gloves is better than one gown, right?

- In Greece, marriage during a leap year is considered unlucky and even today, one in five couples will wait until the following year to tie the knot in order to avoid the leap year. I just realized that Tom and I were married during a leap year...

But the real reason that I wanted to write a Leap Day post is to wish my Grandma - a Leap Day baby - a happy birthday. Today she turns 20. :)

Happy birthday, Grandma!

1 comment:

  1. Awesome info! Thanks for sharing. But why in the good Lord's name are you posting at 4AM!!! LOL!

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