The Saturation Of National Holidays Is Too Much To Bear

By: Salvatore Cento

An X on every day does not mean the holidays should stay. Credit: gottabemobile.com

The date of this writing happens to be September 30th, 2019. Besides being in the smack dab middle of Rosh Hashanah, this date also happens to be National Chewing Gum Day, Hot Mulled Cider Day, Mud Pack Day and Extra Virgin Olive Oil Day among others.

Tomorrow, October 1st seems to be home to many other “holidays” as well. CD Player Day, International Raccoon Appreciation Day, Model T Day, and most importantly, National Fruit at Work Day.

And the next and the next. Once looked up, every day seems to have at least four national or even international dedications. From the most sincere to the most random.

To top everything off, if you happen to be unaware of these daily special events, no worries. Log onto any social media platform and you will surely be kept up to date. I myself learned that today is also International Podcast Day from a friend’s Facebook post.

As entertaining as these can turn out to be, dedicating days to things we do and see all the time, I have an important question. When do these go from being fun to just being downright distracting?

The answer is quite obvious. These willy nilly ideas of what a day should be named in honor of have already become that. And just that, nothing more.

Compared to those national and international holidays that have a historical significance or religious upholding, Fried Scallops Day or Virus Appreciation Day (it’s still a mystery whether this honors the biological kind or the technological kind), for example, don’t have any real backing.

But these celebrational 24 hour periods for the most ludicrous of things can be the most viral. And that’s when this activity not only becomes distracting, but also dangerous.

Upholding gives way for influence. Actual events that have been in place (the ones that have been put on calendars for so long such as the aforementioned Rosh Hashanah) are being drowned out by the spreading of so called holidays that were born less than a couple of years ago. 

These fresh out of the womb “holidays” spread faster than wildfire because of their captivating name and trendsetting thought process. 

National Good and Plenty Day, National Frappe Day, National Department Store Day and National IPod Day (for starters) came out of niches that only seek to further their broader agenda. 

All found within a month of October. All different means of merchandising. Oh, and don’t forget the general Greasy Foods Day, which celebrates all of the foods that we really shouldn’t be eating. 

And then we have the holidays that are based around cultural influences. Frankenstein Friday, I Love Lucy Day and Global James Bond Day.

Meanwhile, our tried and true holidays are being drained into commercialism more and more. All of the mentioned seem to be having more impact on our society than before, in part due to the digital landscape that we live in today. 

Any of these so called important days can just fly in and out of people’s eyes and can be shared millions of times.

Every single day coming from some part of our lives we hear “don’t forget today is…”

We should stop labeling the days that come to pass like we label everything else. We get so caught up in the current twenty-four hour celebration that we forget our own motivations, goals and most importantly what’s right in front of us. 

As a people, we let something that has no effect on our day just come in and change the momentary roadmap because we see that it makes other people happy and thus we want to be included. 

We’re letting the days form themselves so we don’t have to. That isn’t right.