Who knows what today is? No, not Orthodox Earth Day. Today is Cinco de Mayo, literally "The Day that Comes Between May 4 and May 6."

As you may not know any more about this Mexican holiday than can be printed on a promotional tent card in a bar, I will explain it briefly. It is often described as the Mexican version of Independence Day (what we know as Quatro de Julio), but like most things you hear from a guy who's been knocking back Dos Equis all day, that's not quite accurate.

In 1862, Mexico had stopped paying on a debt it owed to France, so France tried to repossess Mexico. The Mexicans did not care for being invaded, even though the French would have forever boosted the tourism industry by giving them Evian.

So the French landed at Corona and started marching toward Mexico City. They met strong resistance at the Mexican forts of Huevos Rancheros and Margarita and finally had their derrieres handed to them by a smaller, ill-equipped Mexican force under Gen. Jose Cuervo.

Wait, that's not right.

I'm sorry -- I'm all muddled because in the finest American tradition, we have turned Cinco de Mayo into an excuse to hang out all night in a Mexican-themed cantina, filling ourselves with cerveza and nachos.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. It may not be quite how the day is celebrated in Mexico, but we like ethnic festivals in consumable form.

Look at St. Patrick's Day, if the light doesn't hurt your eyes. It was never traditionally that big a deal in Ireland, and people observed it mostly by going to church.

But on March 17, Americans are forced to be Irish, which means going to a pub called O'Hooligan's or Paddy's Poteen to drink green beer and eat corned beef and cabbage until you get an Ulster. Ulcer, excuse me.

The principal way to celebrate Chinese New Year seems to be to skip the parade and the firecrackers and go right to a multicourse dinner. I don't know how anybody does this; I can't finish a No. 4 lunch special.

Of course, some holidays were already designed around overindulgence. This is why Mardi Gras and Oktoberfest are so beloved.

The Oktoberfest season starts sometime in late August and ends at Thanksgiving, with the traditional vow never to eat or drink anything ever again.

This vow is kept until lunchtime at the mall food court on Black Friday.

Think about it: There are plenty of other foreign-born holidays that we can turn into booze-ups and chow-downs in a spirit of international cooperation and brotherhood that we rarely demonstrate in any other way. The calendar is full of potential pub crawls and party themes that, with a little creativity, could give us a warm glow of pride and heartburn for days.

If you like St. Patrick's Day, what about St. David's Day? St. David is the patron saint of Wales, and the Welsh are Celts, too, so you can play pretty much the same music and the food is just as bland and heavy. St. David's Day is March 1, so if you're ambitious, you could conceivably stay drunk through the entire first half of the month. Also, you would have an excuse for lugubrious male-chorus singing. As if anyone ever needs one.

July 14 is Bastille Day. This holiday celebrates the French Revolution, which was like ours except with guillotines. Not sure we want to work in the guillotines, but we could spend the day drinking champagne and eating frogs' legs and escargot and ... and ... well, maybe we'd want to go with French fries, French toast and French bread. Hey, it's our party and we'll decide what's French.

We could salute Italy and Sweden if we could make something out of St. Lucia Day on Dec. 13. Nobody is sure why the Swedes are so keen on a Sicilian martyr, but the Scandinavian celebration of her holiday comes with food already, as a girl dressed in white wears candles on her head and serves coffee and sweet rolls. We could easily improve this -- I'm thinking Absolut in the coffee, served by a bar girl in a white bikini and a crown of flaming shots.

And huge cannolis, of course.