I've always been enamored with Christmas Eve. As far as I am aware, its entire purpose is a celebration of the fact that there's a holiday the next day. It's a holiday that exists only to herald another holiday. That's the power of Christmas: It's so big, it has satellites.

I, being the sort of American who loves his country more than one day can allow me, got to thinking recently:We love this country, don't we?We've got this holiday, Independence Day, every July 4, to celebrate that love. Isn't it about time the Fourth of July branches out and makes its own premature celebration?

Happy Third of July! Or should we call it Independence Eve?

How are we going to celebrate this brand new, totally awesome holiday, you ask? I've got a few ideas.

* Presents. I know what you've been thinking every previous Fourth of July of your life:"These fireworks are great. Iwish Iwas unwrapping a gift."

Fret no longer. The Third of July is all about boosting retail sales and national pride. If the Fourth of July is America's birthday, then the Third of July is when Americans get the birthday present. From the government, preferably. We pay our taxes; time for them to give us Snuggie blankets.

* Uncle Sam. All presents need a distribution system. Christmas Eve has Santa Claus stopping by everybody's house. Time for Uncle Sam to make his own house calls. Every Third of July, our government dresses up an army of Uncle Sams, complete with 10-foot stilts, and they just walk down the streets, raining presents on our heads. Doesn't sound any more menacing or scary than a giant elf sliding down our chimneys once a year.

* Fireworks. This one's easy. You've already got the Family Fun Pack. Shoot some off a day early. Who gets sick of fireworks?

* Day off. Listen up, bosses. We workers demand the Third of July off, along with the Fourth. Heck, we'll take the whole week off, now that we think of it. It'll give us a chance to paint our fences red, white and blue.

* Cake. Why have we never had cake on the Fourth of July? Cake is delicious and loved by everybody. I'm correcting this. Everybody gets cake on the Third of July. Give me liberty, or give me cake. Or both.

Let them eat liberty, Isay.

* Historical significance. We're probably going to need some legitimate historical event to anchor this deal on. Try this on for size:July 3, 1890 Idaho is admitted as the 43rd state in the union. We'll all eat potatoes. Or we can blow them up with firecrackers. Just so long as we don't do both, simultaneously.

* Carols. Seriously, if we really love America, shouldn't we be singing Neil Diamond songs?

n Secret handshakes. Ienvision some sort of thing involving our conjoined fingers flapping like eagle's wings, but I'm open to suggestions.

Anyway, we'll use the handshake for authentication purposes. Just keep it amongst us registered U.S. citizens. And if a person doesn't know the handshake, they're probably Canadian.

And they don't get any cake.

(Columnist Kelly Hagen expects a founder's credit on the Wikipedia page for the Third of July. Reach him at 250-8259 or kelly.hagen.) @bismarcktribune.com