February Fun

February babies have reason to celebrate. You share your birth month with Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan. Your birthstone is the lovely Amethyst and your flowers are the violet and primrose. If you had lived during the Victorian era, a gift of violets meant that you’d always be true. Primroses signified that you couldn’t live without that wonderful other person in your life. Since Valentine’s Day comes this month, those flowers fit right in, don’t they?

Folklore abounds for February. According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac: There will be one fine day in February (fine I guess, meaning fair weather), if you see honeybees out and about, button up your overcoat for wind and rain the following day, a foggy February means there’ll be frost in May.

February is a fun time for young school children,  learning about Mr. Washington and Mr. Lincoln and coloring cherry trees, hatchets, and log cabins. When I taught kindergarteners, I found that the Valentine’s Day party and exchanging Valentines was as exciting as Christmas.

And, ladies, according to Irish tradition, it’s perfectly acceptable for you to propose marriage to the guy of your choice on February 29. That happens every four years and the lucky (or unlucky?) day comes around this year!

Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud,
Come floating downward in airy play,
Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd
That whiten by night 
the milky way.
–“The Snow-Shower,” by William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)