New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that, effective immediately, all state-recognized occasions will be celebrated with the cancellation of a critical public health measure or, at the very least, an invitation to engage in previously discouraged high-risk behavior.
February 14 — Valentine’s Day: Restaurants across the five boroughs will reopen, allowing couples to share their love and airborne virus particles. (Now available two days early!)
March 5 — Employee Appreciation Day: All employers must invite staff working from home to mandatory, in-office thank-you parties.
March 14 — Daylight Savings Time Begins: Department of Health to change recommended quarantine period to 14 days, minus one hour.
March 28 — Passover: All New Yorkers will be liberated from the slavery of social distancing protocols and encouraged to attend mass seders.
April 1 — April Fools' Day: 100% of City residents will be immunized: just kidding!
April 1 — Maudy Thursday: All Empire Staters may extend beyond their “bubble” for an evening meal to be called “The Last Supper.”
April 2 — Good Friday: No one will be crucified for not singing “Happy Birthday” while washing their hands.
April 4 — Easter: Earlier guidance that masks are unnecessary will be resurrected.
April 6 — National Library Workers Day: All borrowed texts relating to science, medicine, or rational thought must be returned, regardless of due date.
April 13 — Ramadan Begins: Residents may visit a non-contiguous state between sunset and sunrise while abstaining from mandatory testing and/or quarantining requirements.
April 15 — Tax Day: Special deductions will be extended to non-essential workers who purchased and continue to hoard large amounts of hospital-grade PPE.
April 22 — Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day: Parents will be granted a one-time stimulus payment for exposing themselves and their offspring to stagnant office air and careless millennial co-workers.
May 5 — Cinco de Mayo: IVs previously containing live-saving antivirals and convalescent plasmas will be replaced with frozen margaritas.
May 9 — Mother’s Day: All New Yorkers will be required to have brunch indoors with the woman who gave them life, even if it means the end of hers.
June 6 — D-Day: (To be rebranded “Diagnosis Day”) All new cases will receive a gift card to be used at any indoor restaurant featuring regular karaoke nights.
June 20 — Father’s Day/June Solstice Day: Free one-day MetroCards will be extended to residents who spend the longest day of the year watching long stretches of home videos on the couch with their elderly dad.
July 4 — Independence Day: New Yorkers will finally be free to do whatever dumb shit they want, especially since the English have clearly done even dumber shit.
August 2 — Senior Citizens Day: Matilda Cuomo, the governor’s 89-year-old mother, will host a party for all nursing home residents and staff who continue to refuse the vaccine, with a special mystery guest appearance (Spoiler Alert: it will be a maskless Garth Brooks!).
September 6 — Labor Day: Unionized New York teachers will be excused from pesky bi-weekly testing requirements once school begins.
September 15 — Yom Kippur Begins: No atonement will be necessary for merchants peddling fake hand sanitizer.
October 11 — Columbus Day: Positive individuals who have recently come to NYC to conquer the world will be permitted to infect native New Yorkers, especially those with virgin immune systems most susceptible to fatal diseases.
October 31 — Halloween: No masks of any kind will be permitted, with the exception of masks depicting a maskless Donald Trump.
November 25 — Thanksgiving: Turkey bones may be used to wish away the consequences of going to the gym, especially after 10 p.m.
December 1 — Rosa Parks Day: Dry coughers will be given priority seating at the front of the bus.
December 17 — Wright Brothers Day: All inbound international flights into JFK will resume, with priority access given to South African, Brazilian and British “carriers.”
December 25 — Christmas: Any woman with documented proof she was impregnated by god (not “a god”) while she was dating a guy named Joseph (not Joey) will get free tickets to a Christmas Day Knicks-Nets game.
January 1 — New Years Day: Mr. Cuomo will host a celebration on Liberty Island, where he will bid farewell to 2021 with a slightly revised and less sentimental version of “Auld Lang Syne,” beginning “Should old acquaintances be forgot? Probably, yeah.”