February Observances

St. Bridget arrived in Ireland a few years after St. Patrick. Her father was an Irish lord named Duptace. She loved the poor and would often bring food and clothing to them. One day she gave away a whole pale of milk, and then began to worry about what her mother would say. She prayed to the Lord to make up for what she had given away. When she got home, her pail was full! Bridget made people think of the Blessed Mother because she was so pure and sweet, so lovely and gentle. They called her the "Mary of the Irish."

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saints/bridget.html

2 nd. - Imbolc/Groundhog Day (Fire Festival/Return of Spring)

As a time of the year associated with beginning growth, Imbolc is an initiatory period for many. It is to celebrate the first stirrings of spring from the depths of winter. This is when the first buds can be seen appearing on trees, when the days are quite visibly longer than they were around Yule, and when there are the first days of semi-bearable temperatures.

http://www.witchvox.com/holidays/imbolc.html

Pennsylvania's official celebration of Groundhog Day began on February 2nd, 1886 with a proclamation in The Punxsutawney Spirit by the newspaper's editor, Clymer Freas: "Today is groundhog day and up to the time of going to press the beast has not seen its shadow." The groundhog was given the name "Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary'' and his hometown thus called the "Weather Capital of the World.'' His debut performance: no shadow - early Spring.

http://www.stormfax.com/ghogday.htm

4 th. King Frost Day

5 th. Chinese New Year/Solar Eclipse

Chinese New Year, pronounced in Chinese as "xin nian", always falls on the date of marking the beginning of the spring and thus it is also called the "Spring Festival". "xin" means "new" and "nian" means "year". By tradition, Chinese will be busy in buying presents, decorating their houses, preparing food and making new cloths for the New Year. During that period, all transportation, in particular railway, will be busy in bringing Chinese back to their own home town for a family reunion on the Chinese New year Eve.

http://www.index-china.com/index-english/Dragon-year.html

14 th. St. Valentines Day

Although this is celebrated as a lovers' holiday today, with the giving of candy, flowers, or other gifts between couples in love, it originated in 5th Century Rome as a tribute to St. Valentine, a Catholic bishop.

http://wilstar.com/holidays/valentn.htm

18 th. Festival of Women

21 st. President's Day

Until 1971, both February 12 and February 22 were observed as federal public holidays to honor the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and George Washington (February 22). In 1971 President Richard Nixon proclaimed one single federal public holiday, the Presidents' Day, to be observed on the 3rd Monday of February, honoring all past presidents of the United States of America.

http://www.oocities.org/Heartland/2328/presday.htm

22 nd. St. Lucia's Day

27 th. Feast of Esther

29 th. Leap Year Day

There is a valid reason for the calendar and clocks to be adjusted periodically. It is also interesting to note that it originated over 2000 years ago during the time of Julius Caesar, leader of the Roman Empire. The calendar used at that time was not accurate at all. It was based on calculations that were not correct and sometimes not even close.

In 46 BC Julius Caesar established the Julian calendar which was used in the west until 1582. In the Julian calendar each year contained 12 months and there were an average of 365.25 days in a year. This was achieved by having three years containing 365 days and one year containing 366 days. (In fact the leap years were not correctly inserted until 8 AD).

http://www.digtl.com/leapyr.htm

http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/leapyear/leapyear.html

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