6 Insane Holidays You'll Wish You Celebrated

6 Rouketopolemos -- Xtreme Easter

Even if you don't celebrate Easter, you're at least familiar with it as the boring pseudo-Christmas that comes along in the first half of the year. You don't get any presents, but you have Easter egg hunts, which often go hand-in-hand with a church picnic, fair or some other kind of clean, constructive activity.

However, ask someone from the Greek town of Vrontados about Easter and you'll probably trigger a 'Nam flashback. This is all thanks to the Panagia Erithiani and Agios Markos churches and their annual tradition of Rouketopolemos, which translates directly to "Rocket War," which is exactly what it sounds like.

Rouketopolemos is just a giant unregulated rocket fight between the two aforementioned churches. At midnight before Easter Sunday, the congregations of Panagia Erithiani and Agios Markos go up to their respective bell towers, located on hilltops 400 meters apart. They prepare launching ramps full of homemade projectile explosives before unleashing the Kracken on their cross-town rivals.

To win the game, you must hit the opposing church's bell more times than they hit yours, though honestly if you make it through the night with all 10 fingers intact, go ahead and declare yourself a winner. While shit does get pretty damn real on the ground, the real best view in the house is only for the ultra ballsy: right next to the fucking bell.

The next day, after all the inevitable forest fires have been put out, the two churches compare scores, each declaring themselves the winner and vowing to settle the score next year. Ah, tradition.

Of course, not everyone in town is thrilled with this celebration, as much time must be spent each year fireproofing houses and shops that might get winged during the festivities.

But they shouldn't bitch. Today's version of Rouketopolemos is much tamer than it was back before the Ottoman era, when it was celebrated with motherfucking real-ass cannons.

5 Father's Day from the People Who Brought You Oktoberfest

Quick -- what did you get your dad last Father's Day? A tie? No wonder he never came back when he said he was just leaving to pick up cigarettes. And to think, all this could have been avoided if only you lived in Germany.

See, the German people understand that a dad doesn't want the same breakfast-in-bed bullshit that passes on Mother's Day. Instead, their version of Father's Day, Vatertag, is celebrated in a manner that appeals to much more manly dudes.

Alternatively known as Mannertag (Men's Day) or, if you add monocles, Herrentag (Gentleman's Day), this holiday is not exclusive to fathers only, as they celebrate it alongside their sons, relatives, friends and anyone else who is fun to get drunk with and attached to a penis. Truly, it is an epic bro sesh.

The whole shebang revolves around two things all men love: beer and not asking for directions. Guys pack up plenty of their favorite hoppy-wheaty beverage and wander off into the countryside, sipping all the way.

To facilitate the journey, groups first must construct a Bollerwagen to drag their alcohol along in, with designs ranging from the purely functional to, dare we say, downright beautiful.

As they follow their group's leader, or fuhrer, on a hike through the wilderness, the guys take turns pulling the cart. Dad said it builds character. As the hike becomes a walk and the walk becomes a stumble, the cart gets lighter and lighter, and once all the sweet, sweet brain-cell destroying nectar is gone, the boys head home. Mannertag accomplished!

Though this is clearly one the most awesome parts of German culture, there are some repressed boring losers in the German government who think the holiday needs to be changed to focus more on a father's responsibility to his family. Whatever. On the bright side, having "the man" try to shut your party down really cements the fact that it simply rocks too hard.

4 Purim -- A Two-Day Halloween Where Drinking Is Mandatory

Purim is a Jewish holiday, and as such, it celebrates the same thing all Jewish holidays celebrate: narrowly escaping genocide. Back in the days of the Persian Empire, a bigwig named Haman was going to wipe out the Jews because one refused to bow to him.

Luckily for our skull-capped friends, a spicy she-Jew named Esther happened to be boning the Persian king. The story goes that Esther made moves like a wily sorority girl, throwing a weekend-long party to get the king good and liquored up so he'd take it well when she revealed she was Jewish, which in those times would have been approximately on par with admitting she was a dude. The king was momentarily conflicted, but then remembered that Esther had boobs. He reversed the mass execution orders, having Haman killed instead. L'chaim.

Today, Jewish folks celebrate that they still exist by getting dressed up in costumes as a nod to Esther's hidden identity like some kind of Hasidic Halloween. For ultra-observant Jews, it's the only chance they get to really let their ear-locks down, and they don't waste it on weak gefilte fish.

On Purim, observant worshipers are commanded to get blackout drunk. Literally commanded. As it is written in the Talmud, the official book of Jewish law, "A person is obligated to drink on Purim until he does not know the difference between 'cursed be Haman' and 'blessed be Mordechai'."

The thing that makes this booze bonanza truly epic is that thanks to the Hebrew calendar it starts one night and then continues through the entire next day, like all good keggers. Keep in mind, if you're doing it right, your ass is going to be wasted beyond the point of comprehension the whole time. We can only speculate what that Manischewitz hangover feels like.

3 Monkey Buffet Festival -- The World's Most Adorable Thanksgiving

Every year in in the Lopburi province of Thailand, around 10,000 locals gather to indulge in a huge feast prepared by the country's top chefs. After the guests have eaten their fill, they traditionally engage in wholesome group activities such as climbing trees, humping in the grass and flinging feces at one another. Oh, and did we mention that the guests are all monkeys?

While the Lopburi Monkey Buffet Festival might have a name that conjures up images of the childhood-ruining dinner scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the monkeys in question are actually the guests of honor, not the main course. See, the long-tailed macaques in the area are considered to be the descendants of Hanuman, a Hindu monkey god.

It stands to reason for Hindus that feeding their deity's progeny will bring about success and prosperity. This is especially true for the local monkey shit-cleaner who's putting a kid through college off this festival alone.

The monkey food is probably better than the shit you eat, too. This two-ton banquet can cost upward of $15,000 -- no surprise, given that it's prepared by 20 of the top chefs in Bangkok and includes sausage, ice cream, fruit, milk, jelly and all sorts of other stuff that might be better off going to starving children. Fuck it -- monkeys are way more fun than them, anyways.

Though it might seem a bit odd to blow so much cash on gourmet dining for animals who are just as content to eat the bugs that live in their sister's back hair as anything else, the superstition about them bringing prosperity is actually kinda true. The festival attracts thousands of tourists to the Lopburi area, increasing the revenue of the cities that have the most monkeys. And if that's not enough of a reason to love the scruffy little disease balls, we don't know what is.

2 Day of Conception -- The Induced Labor Day

For the past decade or so, Russia has been having a little trouble getting it up -- the national birthrate, that is. It's become such an issue that the government now even offers money for couples willing to churn out multiple lil' Ruskies. After all, there needs to be a new generation to take over the country someday.

Thankfully, every problem has a solution. In fact, some problems have multiple solutions, ranging from sensible and well-planned to over-the-top and probably sort of unnecessary. Enter Sergey Ivanovich Morozov, a man who preferred the latter. As Governor of Ulyanovsk, he declared a new holiday on September 12 called the Day of Conception, in which citizens are given the day off work to get down to a very different kind of business.

Why September 12? Because it falls exactly nine months prior to the equally bluntly named Russia Day. Not only is the purpose of the Day of Conception to eventually litter the ground with Tolstoy toddlers, but it's also intended to ensure their birthdays line up with Russia's biggest national holiday, in order to breed a race of super-soldiers, we assume.

While some extra free time and an excuse to fuck like Tribbles sounds pretty rad in and of itself, this celebration doesn't merely end five seconds after climax. The party picks back up in June when Russia Day rolls around, and the big patriotic boning contest becomes the big patriotic showcase showdown.

As the fun-size Yuri Gagarin's get popped out, moms get fabulous prizes, including cash, appliances and in one lucky case, a brand new car. Really though, the best part about a fucking contest is that there are no losers. Except, of course, the babies born on June 13.

1 Up Helly Aa -- The Drunken, Flaming Viking Parade

Given that the good people of Scotland tend to celebrate by drinking whiskey, tossing giant logs and eating a sheep's heart, liver and lungs wrapped in its own stomach, it might come as little surprise that those crazy Bravehearts know how to throw one hell of a shindig. While some holidays are observed with eating, and others with gifts, Up Helly Aa, an annual festival celebrated all throughout Shetland, is celebrated in one simple way: fire.

In each town in the region, large groups of sweaty, presumably drunken Scotsmen gather together and play Viking for a day, swearing their allegiance to their squad's "Guizer Jarl," a grand marshal of sorts. Participants wear badass armor, carry Viking weapons and even design unique coats-of-arms to honor their leader.

They stumble down streets with gasoline-soaked torches belting out slurred Norse anthems about Thor or the Midgard Serpent or some shit, as the procession symbolically brings the replica boat toward the mythic afterlife of Valhalla, because ... why the hell not? It's better than staying home on a Tuesday night.

Upon arriving at the end of the parade route, they wind that thing down in the style any self-respecting Viking would: burning the ship to the motherfucking ground.

The especially odd thing is that even though this booze-fueled burn-ward-waiting-to-happen march is all about Vikings, Up Helly Aa isn't actually an ancient Norse holiday at all. Its origin dates back only to the late 1800s, and it's widely believed the holiday was created as an excuse for bored soldiers to party and riot after coming home from the Napoleonic Wars. So remember, the next time you and your buddies have an extra-wild costume party, you very well could be starting a tradition that will carry on for centuries.

When not getting Purim drunk, Alexander L. Hoffman writes comedy for Tranya! Go ahead and contact him via e-mail or Twitter.

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