So why do we “celebrate” April Fools Day?  Well, there are several theories floating around and this is the one that I choose to believe.

When the western world used the Julian calendar, the year began on March 25th because they celebrated the start of a new year with the start of spring. However since that fell in the Holy Week, the celebrated it on the first of April. However when we switched to the Gregorian calendar in the 1500s, we moved the New Year to the first of January. According to the most widely told story, those who still celebrated the New Year on April 1st were called April fools.

Hmm.  I don’t know about that but, what the heck?  I’ll go with it till I hear something better.

Did you know…

In France, April Fools day is called “Poisson d’Avril” meaning April Fish. The tradition is that French children will tape paper fish to the backs of their friends. When they would discover the fish on their back, the prankster would yell “Poisson d’Avril!” The origin of this is unknown.

In Scotland the April fool is called April “gowk” which is Scottish for cuckoo. The Cuckoo is an emblem of simpletons.

In Canada, CHEZ FM fooled the listeners one April Fools Day making listeners believe that it was the last day that the treasury would honor all the two-dollar bills still in circulation. The same year they had people going through their change looking for the mysterious two-dollar coins that had mistakenly been minted from real gold.

One newscaster on the news show CBO Morning announced that the clock in Ottawa’s Peace Tower was being switched to digital.

On 1 April 1957 on BBC’s show Panorama opened with a line about Spring coming early this year, prompting the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland to be early as well. In the normal news manner, spaghetti’s oddly uniform length was explained as the result of years of dedicated cultivation. The report stated that the ravenous spaghetti weevil had been conquered.

And for all you “fools” out there, here is a link to help clear things up for you.  http://www.snopes.com/

Merry (?) April Fools Day!