Flowers and Candy and Cards - OH MY!

I loved Valentine's Day as a kid. What kid doesn't? You get to carve out an hour of school time to gather in envelopes full of free candy while you munch on heart-shaped sugar cookies and guzzle fruit punch.

As an adult, I find I really don't care. I don't like chocolate. I'm allergic to flowers. And I buy my own jewelry.

Don't get me wrong - I love to celebrate romance with my hubby. I just don't need a day set aside for it.

Because I'm of the slightly cynical opinion that Valentine's Day is a conspiracy put together by a high-level corporate conglomerate consisting (yay! alliteration!) of Hershey's, Hallmark, and 1-800-Flowers, I thought I'd go to Hallmark's website to find a list of days set aside for card-sending, chocolate-consuming, or flower-buying.

Here's what I found:

Valentine's Day 2/14: How can I possibly take seriously a holiday whose mascot is a chubby naked man-baby with wings and a glittering bow and arrow?


April Fools' Day 4/1: Do people really send cards or gifts for this? I used to hide rubber rats in my mom's bathroom cupboard and start screaming "Rodent!!" just to test their blood pressure.


Tax Day 4/15: If you send me a card for tax day, make sure it's stuffed full of cash. That's a concept I can get behind.


Earth Day 4/22: Oh surely you jest. A card? For Earth Day? Isn't that sort of against the whole point? Or maybe they just want to encourage mass recycling of gift cards that day.

Administrative Professionals Day 4/23: I really do think honoring secretaries and receptionists - oops! Administrative Professionals! - is an excellent idea. Having been one to put myself through college, I can tell you that the only drawback to this holiday is that it comes only once a year. We should have more days set aside where bosses have to stop behaving badly and instead have to spend their money to honor the person who makes them look good. =)

Cinco de Mayo 5/5: Oooh, thanks but I'd rather have a pinata. One in the shape of Hillary Clinton's head.


Mother's Day 5/11: No argument here. :D


Armed Forces Day 5/17: Also no argument, though I think we need to do better than to honor our armed forces only once a year. That's an individual thing, though. I don't think our poor calendars can take on any more "special days".


Memorial Day 5/26: Again, no argument that this is a worthy holiday but I'm confused as to whom I'm supposed to be sending a card...we don't really wish each other Happy Memorial Day, do we?


Father's Day 6/15: My hubby prefers homemade cards from the kiddos but to date, he's never turned down offerings of chocolate.


Canada Day 7/1: Well this is interesting. I was looking at a list of American holidays and this popped up. Do we really need a Canada Day? Isn't that sort of exclusionary toward our other allies? Where is our Great Britain Day? Our South Korea Day? Our Israel Day?


Fourth of July 7/4: Leave off the card and the chocolate and bring me fireworks instead, please. Big ones.


Friendship Day 8/3: Now, see? This is the kind of holiday that just makes me roll my eyes. This is a blatant attempt to garner more of my money by making me feel guilty if I don't honor my friends on August 3rd. Fortunately, I'm immune to such pressure.


Sisters' Day 8/5: Ditto what I said for Friendship Day. And did we have to stock so many useless holidays into one week? Furthermore, where is Brother's Day? Surely we could fit that into 8/7 just to round it all out?


Grandparents Day 9/7: Ditto Friendship Day again.


National Boss Day 10/16: Hmmm. Sounds like management wants to recoup their expenditures on Administrative Professionals Day. Really, I think this is close enough to Christmas that employees should get to choose one gift that covers both. Or just ignore it. Either way.


Sweetest Day 10/18: What does this even mean? Anyone?


Halloween 10/31: Again, no card for me. Just send candy.


Veterans Day 11/11: I think we could roll this day up with Armed Forces Day because really, we're honoring them all. But that's probably a really politically incorrect sentiment and since I strongly believe in honoring our troops all year through, I'll silence the part of me that longs for just one week that doesn't have a little Hallmark label at the bottom of one of the days.


Thanksgiving 11/27: I don't send cards for Thanksgiving. Does anyone? If you do, permit me to inform you that you are an over-achiever. A nice one, but an over-achiever all the same.


Hanukkah 12/21: 8 days of presents has to make Hallmark absolutely giddy.


Christmas 12/25: *sigh* Now THIS is a holiday where I do my part to support the conglomerate.


Kwanzaa 12/26: Not my thing but combine this with the two before it and the conglomerate is having a banner month.


New Year 1/1: You know, Korean families have a New Year's tradition where the entire clan gathers and the elders pass out wads of cash to the younger set. This is a tradition I think we should all embrace. At least until we find ourselves classified as an elder.


National Mentoring Month: What?? Get real.



Groundhog Day 2/2: The only good thing to come out of this holiday was that movie - and even it wasn't so great.