Lent: Why not give that up?

So yesterday was the 3rd best day of the year (Behind christmas day and my birthday!) the wonderful festival of cake from a pan, or to normal people Pancake day. I ate loads! Here is a list of the toppings I used: Clotted Cream,  Maple Syrup, The squirty lemon stuff, Chocolate Syrup, oh and sugar. Really its Shrove Tuesday and until now I didn't really know what it means or why the hell we eat pancakes on it either. So let us dive in to the history of the mystery of Lent..

Lent
Well until today I assumed everyone knew what lent was. Until I asked an employee at work what he was giving up for lent, to which he replied "No I didn't lend you anything". What a tit. I then asked weren't you baptized? he stated (and I sh*t you not)  "No I was christened" The tit grows larger...
Anyway, Lent starts on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Sunday. Typically if you are serious in your faith (which just to be clear I am not) You will fast during this period, whereas most people nowadays give up chocolate for a week, then say well I done a week and then stuff themselves! The story goes that Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert and withstood temptation from the devil, Lent is basically emulating it. Also sundays don't count in Lent so this period is actually longer than forty days.

Shrove Tuesday
Its the day before Lent. Last chance to do all the naughty stuff you can't do for the next forty days except Sundays. There is actually a good reason why its pancakes we eat on shrove tuesday. As I said the most die hard christians fast during Lent. In the olden days your main staple would of been sugar, fat, flour and eggs, Holy crap! Thats the ingredients for pancakes! Get the picture you ate pancakes to use everything up before you started fasting. Kinda makes sense when you think about it.

Ash Wednesday
Thats it if you didn't enjoy all the good stuff yesterday, TOUGH! It's too late because now its fasting street for the next forty days (apart from sundays!) The reason its named so is because this is the day you go to church to repent, and we all know how christians love to repent! While you're in the church repenting like you have never repented before, You will have the symbol of the cross drawn on your head with what? Thats right you guessed it, ashes. To those who said crayon shame on you!  The ash cross is to symbolize mourning and why not, more repentence. It is predominantly done from the ash of palms burnt and blessed from the previous years Palm Sunday. The wearer must not wash off the cross but rather leave it till it wears off naturally. This is of course optional in the modern day society.

So there you have it, pretty much the long and short of it dumbed down to these three paragraphs. Whether you are religious or not, its good to have these traditions where we can try and change something in our lives we are not happy with. So whether you are fasting or only giving up chocolate, stick at it. After all its only forty days bar sundays....