Mark your calendriers!

At work recently I was charged with editing some French Canadian calendars and asked to pay particular attention to the French Canadian holidays to make sure that they were all there, all on the right days, and all spelled correctly. I was thrilled to get a job that allowed me to not only use my French, but to use my French Canadian. As I read each holiday (sometimes in my head, sometimes outloud) I made sure to pronounce it with a French Canadian accent and add a tabernac!* for good measure. But by the time I got to 2 janvier, or January 2, I became very concerned that a crucial French Canadian holiday was missing...

[segue into story]

Almost a decade ago, when I was still living in Northern Ontario, my mom and I heard of a wonderful shopping city called Rouyn-Noranda. Of course, we'd always known that the city was there (in Quebec) but we didn't know that they apparently had good shopping (in Northern Ontario, you can't get Gap, you can't get Banana, you can't get Old Navy---you can't get any of the stores that one takes for granted). We decided that we needed to take a road trip one day to check it out.

So on January 2, 1998, or 2 janvier, 1998, Mom, The Boy, my best friend, and I all hopped into our car and undertook the three-hour drive to Rouyn. On our way, we listened to my mother's Proclaimers CD and determined that those twins make strange Scottish noises in every single song they sing. But that's beside the point.

The point is that after three hours of driving through snowy wilderness, we arrived in Rouyn. We first saw a large Walmart and noticed that the parking lot was eerily empty. We assumed that the Walmart was brand-new and hadn't actually opened yet. We kept on driving, but noted that store after store after store was closed. Nothing was open except a little diner. Realizing that our three-hour trip to Rouyn would be wasted if we didn't do something (and being hungry after our three-hour trip), we went into the diner for lunch.

When our waitress came to take our order, I asked her why all the stores were closed. If you thought that French snootiness was restricted to France, think again. In her snootiest, French Canadianest French, she told me, "C'est le lendemain du jour de l'an" and walked away, leaving me to translate for my family: "It's the day after New Year's."

But of course! Mais bien sur! Le lendemain du jour de l'an! It's the forgotten holiday! No one else in the world celebrates the day after New Year's but in Rouyn it was sacred enough for me to be sassed for even wondering what was going on.

And yet, now years later, I am left to look over the French Canadian calenders and wonder where le lendemain du jour de l'an is. Because even though all the stores in Rouyn may close down that day, there's no evidence to support that kind of behavior on the French Canadian calendar.


*If you speak French, this will not make sense to you. If you speak French Canadian, you'll either laugh or be offended. Caulice.