What To Give Up For Lent?

In case you weren't paying attention to the interminable, repetitive, heart-warming-at-first-but-now-totally-tiring parade of news stories about how Mardi Gras is still happening in New Orleans, let Bostonist remind you: Today is Fat Tuesday, which means that tomorrow, Catholics will begin Lent, give up their favorite sinful activity for a while, and generally be good and penitent (in recognition of Jesus's suffering on the cross and general sacrifice for the good of everybody) in the run-up to Easter. Naturally, then, everyone must get their sinning out tonight, or at least all of the stuff they intend to give up for Lent.

So what should you give up for Lent? Far be it from (this non-Catholic) Bostonist to tell you, but we can survey what others have done. Our favorite local blogger, Jonelle, weighed caffeine and booze and chose to drop the booze. Our own Christi has given up doing things with her right hand, although that's not half as saucy an abstention as it sounds. A certain institution in Cambridge with which we're acquainted (although not as well as we would have liked when we were applying to law school) is giving up pushy, controversial management (or intellectual openness, depending on whom you ask). (And speaking of intellectual openness (and parentheticals), another local blogger has contemplated giving up bookstores for Lent.)

We googled "give up for lent" and the first site we found was, not surprisingly, GaveUpForLent.com. We hoped this would provide us with an actual window into the general Catholic Lent experience, but it seems the site is either a parody or has been taken over by less-than-earnest posters. So we turn, as we often do, to our loyal (if sometimes unresponsive) readers and ask, what are you giving up for Lent? All we ask is that you don't do like this Herald writer and give up blogs. We're not nearly sinful enough, even with all our cursing and blurry naked pictures.

When you do a Google image search for "lenten," you get a lot of religious iconography. You also get this awesome picture of kung fu fighting, an activity Bostonist intends to give up for Lent.