At last, the holiday season that began on Halloween will finally come to a close with Super Bowl Sunday. You may say it's not a holiday because most of us get Sunday off anyway, but la-la-la-la, I can't hear you, it's a holiday. After that we must wait two entire weeks, a fortnight, 14 days, before we get another long weekend for Presidents Day. But then you'll have to wait until Memorial Day to really relax.

Unless, like me, you choose to celebrate and honor local and religious holidays by not going to work on Texas Independence Day, Casimir Pulaski Day, Mardi Gras, St. Patrick's Day, Maryland Day, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Day, Cesar Chavez Day, Seward's Day, Pascua Florida Day, Father Damien Day, Maundy Thursday, Patriot's Day, San Jacinto Day, Oklahoma Day, Arbor Day, several Confederate Memorial Days, Law Day, Rhode Island Independence Day, Cinco de Mayo, Truman Day, Mother's Day, Armed Forces Day, Harvey Milk Day and National Maritime Day. Sorry, I had to leave out a few to save a forest.

All together, I counted 36 holy days, name days and observance days between Presidents Day and Memorial Day -- and that's not counting the ones that fall on the weekends, like Easter.

If you do celebrate Mardi Gras, do you really think you're going to make it to work on Ash Wednesday? Not if you're doing it right. But the Super Bowl is different. It's the one holiday where you can overeat and over-drink and wager on football. Whoops, I forgot: That's pretty much true for Thanksgiving and New Year's, too. Or any day they play football. Maybe this year someone will finally come up with a Super Bowl snack that rivals the Turducken of Thanksgiving. Instead of turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken, they'll invent the Sauguaco: a sausage stuffed with guacamole stuffed with nachos.

But the real difference between the Super Bowl and other holidays is that you're supposed to show up at work the next day and talk about it. When people ask you if you had a nice Christmas, you could say almost anything and it would work, because after all, whose business is it that you had a fight with your son-in-law and will never see your grandchildren again? Who's to know if your wife didn't like the exercise bicycle you bought her? But the Super Bowl, you better have your facts straight. The only excuse for missing work on Super Bowl Monday is that you didn't watch it -- or you watched something else. Or maybe that's your job, figuring out what to put on TV opposite the Super Bowl. Commercials that sell for a million dollars a minute on the Super Bowl must cost pennies on the other stations. It must be infomercial heaven. Can I hear a "ShamWow!"