The following holidays are officially being put on blast: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Easter. They are all weak, pathetic holidays. They have all been ruined by a stronger, more epic holiday.

As a senior in college prepping for my fourth rodeo, I should have learned to contain my excitement. But I can’t. Marathon Monday is coming. Wait, that’s not quite right. Let me try again.

MARATHON MONDAY IS HERE.

As a student at Boston College, Marathon Monday is your favorite day of the year whether you know it or not. I know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, we get to wake up and start drinking!” WRONG. Well, technically not wrong, but that’s not why. All 364 other days lead to this one for more reasons than you could possibly fathom. For brevity’s sake, I’ve assembled the five most important, which I present to you here in a countdown to awesomeness:

THE TOP FIVE REASONS MARATHON MONDAY IS THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR:

5. Marathon Monday is America’s REAL birthday.

“Stand your ground, men! Don’t fire unless fired upon! But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!” – Captain John Parker, Lexington, MA 4/19/1775. Yes, he really said it.

Before we get to the race, our school’s location right at the climax of it, and of course the tremendous amount of celebrating that accompanies both, we’re going to take a trip back in time to the year 1775.

The place: Lexington & Concord, Massachusetts. The date: April 19. The event: THE MOST IMPORTANT GUNSHOT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

For those of you not from Massachusetts, or who don’t know anyone from Lexington or Concord, here’s what happened. The British military decided that it was going to march out to Concord and confiscate a huge supply of guns and ammo that some colonists had stockpiled. Some brave Patriots (yes, capital P) heard about it, and assembled on the town green in Lexington to tell those Redcoats to march back to Boston and keep their hands off our guns (full disclosure: I’m from Lexington).

Nobody knows who fired the first shot as the Patriots and Redcoats squared off that glorious morning. What we do know is that by the time the smoke had cleared, the most important event in the history of Western civilization, the American Revolution, had begun. The British marched onto Concord but then got their butts kicked all the way back to their ships in Boston. Go America!

Also, if you don’t consider the American Revolution the most important event in the history of Western civilization, move back to France.

What does this all have to do with Marathon Monday? Well, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, April 19 was not only designated as Patriots’ Day in commemoration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The Boston Marathon also took place every year on the same day – not by coincidence. In 1969, someone who loved three-day weekends decided to move Patriots’ Day to the third Monday of April, and Marathon Monday was born.

Now before we move on, I urge you to ask yourself this question: if you enjoy St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo or Halloween, days that have literally nothing to do with the birth of your homeland, are you not obligated as a patriotic citizen of these United States of America to cherish the birthday of our nation even more? Thought so.

4. We get the day off. And it’s the only time it’s warm.

Let’s go down the list of our holidays and days off from class:

Labor Day doesn’t count because classes haven’t really started yet. Columbus Day is freezing and half your roommates go home anyway. We have class on Halloween. Unless it’s a weekend. And still it’s cold. We have class on Veterans Day and it’s mid-November at this point. Thanksgiving. Ha. Winter break! Christmas, New Year’s and sometimes MLK Day, and either way you’re snowed in or far away. We have class on Presidents’ Day. Despite turning 21 on Presidents' Day 2012, I can safely say without bias that it’s the least patriotic thing about BC. St. Patrick’s Day is a 50/50 shot at being cold and a 5/7 shot of having class. Everyone runs home for Easter break. Cinco de Mayo is during study days or finals.

See? We get the day off. And it’s the only time it’s warm.

3. It’s our day and only our day.

For whatever reason (cough, jealousy), the rest of the country does not celebrate Patriots’ Day. And you’re ecstatic about it.

Look at that list of holidays again. All of them are national. They’re great because everyone in the country is celebrating along with us. Hooray inclusion!

Wait a second: the only thing more fun than inclusion is exclusion. Think about it; the only thing more fun than going to a club with your friends is being in the VIP section.

Marathon Monday is our VIP holiday. The rest of the country looks longingly towards us as we celebrate freedom and marathon running on a Monday. If you fail to grasp the magnitude of this moment, you are not only failing yourself, you are failing millions of people across the other 49 states that would kill to be you for one day. Then again, you’re a VIP and they’re not so do as you please.

2. We can tailgate drink outside even though there’s no football.

Everyone who lives in the Mods, as well as some seniors who don’t live in the Mods (but who cares about them because they don’t live in the Mods), got this email. It says that Marathon Monday is not tailgating.

It then goes on to say that we can drink outside our Mods during designated hours, and that we are not allowed to do a bunch of other stuff that we aren’t ever allowed to do anyway. The technical definition of tailgating involves the actual tailgate of a car, but for anyone who goes to BC, it means drinking outdoors. Period. I am not quite sure what the difference for Mods residents is, but it is clearly immaterial. Beer tastes better outdoors (but remember: drink responsibly).

A few notes before we move on to the end of our list:

I. As a freshman I’d never list “no football game” as a good thing, but it’s a sad comment on the past few seasons that I’m excited that my outdoor beer-sipping doesn’t have to precede three hours of watching the football team get smacked around by Notre Dame.

I met a guy and a girl from the University of Florida who absolutely hated Steve Addazio’s guts because he misused John Brantley in an offensive scheme designed around Tim Tebow. It bears mentioning that the Gators still made a bowl this season.

Their collective rage made me realize that we as SuperFans need to get significantly more angry and let the university know it the next time someone almost burns the football program to the ground the way Frank Spaziani did. Am I still bitter that the number of wins the team had this season was equal to its national ranking back when I decided to apply to BC? You’re 100 percent right I’m still bitter. Every SuperFan shirt printed from now until the end of time should have Spaz’s face on the back with the words “2 and 10. Never Again” as the slogan. Let’s move on.

II. If you are under 21, and especially if you are an underclassman, you need to stay out of the Mods on Marathon Monday. I say this as a warning for your own good. Do not tempt the housing gods.

If you get caught, they will laugh in your face and give you an incredible pick time that you’ve been forbidden from using on a Mod. If you don’t get caught, you will end up in Edmonds, which you will sadly refer to as “Ed-Mods” in an attempt to make yourself feel less miserable about your terrible life. As a dude who has gotten not just the buildings, but also the exact rooms he wanted both sophomore and senior year (for the record: Montel Harris’ old room and the Strip Mod), you would be wise to heed my advice.

1. Dartying is awesome when you do it correctly.

Dartying is awesome because it takes everything great about a normal party and adds sunlight, which is scientifically proven to make you happy. And Marathon Monday is the ultimate darty because not only is literally everyone you know celebrating, but it’s the reward for a whole year of hard work. Like I said, all 364 days lead to this one.

As you may have already heard if you read this lovely article by my friend Sam Costanza, “I’m Shmacked” is was planning on coming to BC on Marathon Monday. They apparently heard we’re going to party.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP0Xod-L1Yw&feature=player_embedded

(Did you watch the video? Good.)

As much as I love the state of West Virginia for producing Randy Moss, I’m kind of horrified by what’s going on in that video. It’s like all of these lovers of Irish culture have warped the whole idea of partying into a bizarre, anger-fueled competition of who can do the most incredibly stupid stunts involving multiple cans of Natty.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with drinking (unless you’re not 21. That’s illegal!). I just hate when people drink way too much, way too fast. Not because you get sick and dragged off the infirmary. I mean, I’m not the one puking my guts out. I hate it because idiots who don’t know how to drink properly ruin partying for the rest of us.

The idiots puking on Comm. Ave at 10 a.m. on Marathon Monday are the reasons that we get 7,000 annoying e-mails warning us to be safe leading up to any day that involves alcohol. They’re why the cops have to lock down the Mods like District 9 anytime we might take a Keystone Light outside. Honestly, they’re even why most of us scramble to hit the “untag” button as soon as a picture showing us holding a drink pops up on Facebook. After all, how will we get jobs if the interviewers think we party?

My point is that the idea of “partying” gets warped at college. The point of a party is to spend time with a large group of people you like, doing things you enjoy. Throughout history, alcohol has often been a part of that process – and there’s nothing wrong with that. The problem starts when people say “screw moderation,” drink way too much and start hurting themselves, trying to hurt other people, or wrecking other people’s stuff. As far as I’m concerned, if you black out or even come close, you’re no longer partying. I can only speak for myself, but vomiting and embarrassing myself have never been enjoyable.

And if you do choose to indulge in alcohol during our VIP, sun-soaked outdoor celebration of America’s birthday, the only advice I can give is to mimic the actual marathon runners: pace yourself!

Now, enough wetblanketry. Gavel Media is already kicking out the jams. Go forth and enjoy the happiest day of the year. After all, as the great Dave Chappelle impersonating the great Rick James once said, “IT’S A CELEBRATION.”

Follow Robert Rossi on Twitter @RVRossi.

Gavel Media encourages students to behave safely this Marathon Monday and reminds those 21+ to drink responsibly.

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