And after hosting a small birthday party for a 6 year old yesterday, I could use a cheap holiday. I’ll add the totals below for my expenses, but trust me, even a low-budget-not-quite-a-birthday-party party costs some green. I’m not quite sure how parents with children whose birthdays fall not on Christmas but a week or two around it could possibly manage. At least with Christmas Day kids, you can actually save some money by combining the birthday and Christmas presents.

To avoid sounding too glib though about the importance of Columbus Day, I will add that today is actually quite a significant holiday around the world, not just in the United States. It is also celebrated in the Bahamas as Discovery Day and in Uruguay as Dia de las Americas (Day of the Americas), which may be more appropriate to those that say Columbus didn’t really “discover” anything. To him it was new, so it depends on who’s looking at it.

Columbus Day is reinforced further as my favorite holiday, because under normal circumstances I would also have an extra day off from work. My office stays open though and closes on a different holiday, Black Friday (the crazy shopping day after Thanksgiving) instead. Black Friday doesn’t cost me much either though since I don’t typically participate in the festivities of day long line waiting and bumper shopping carts, but in a round about way, I wouldn’t have that day off if it weren’t for Mr. Columbus. And besides, who can’t use a day of rest after Thanksgiving.

So in honor of Columbus Day, my daughter and I ate a fancy mini corndog and peas and carrots meal and for dessert will probably have a small piece of leftover birthday cake. No cards or gifts necessary. There may even be a special holiday show on television.

Here’s to Columbus Day, friends. Hope you had a great one!

Operation WITHIMMG:
Day 18-expenses were actually for Day 19.
Day 19- Birthday AKA Budget Buster Day: $60 birthday presents, $11 Dairy Queen birthday cake. I did get a sweet discount using a coworker’s coupons. Not bad, I guess. Grocery Shopping afterwards was the icing on the cake (so to speak) with a whopping $150 which included my daughter’s birthday snack for school-$10 and delicacies like the mini corndogs necessary to celebrate Columbus Day. Total: $221.00
Day 20-0 take that expensive holiday people!!