We'll try to find a spare sunbeam.
What Day Is It?
Well. We have all-apparently-survived Black Friday. And Small Business Saturday. Cyber Monday. Giving Tuesday. And in case you thought you were done with randomly-created ‘holidays’, you are SO wrong. Tomorrow is National Cookie Day. Dec 9 is National Anti-Corruption Day. The 12th? Gingerbread House Day. And-my current favorite-Dec 15th is Cat Herder’s Day. Query: How do you celebrate that? By engaging in futile acts all day?
Lest you think this ‘day’ craze is just an unfortunate offshoot of the social media age, you are STILL wrong. Savvy marketers have been capitalizing on the designation of random holidays for over a century.
National Raisin Day debuted in 1909. In 1938, June 1 was designated ‘Doughnut Day’ to honor the Doughnut Girls who served them to soldiers during World War I, and also to sell doughnuts. More recently, over 60,000 patrons have talked like a pirate to earn a free piece of fish on Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept 19) at Long John Silver’s. And IHOP has raised $24 million for charity in exchange for a *free* short stack on National Pancake Day (Changes each year; for 2018, it’s Feb 13.)
By 1985, citizens got so carried away lobbying for National Bowling Week or National Chocolate Milk Day that one out of three bills introduced in Congress involved designating a special day, week, or month. In 1995, our representatives sensibly enacted a ban on any more ‘Days’.
In this case, I’m with Congress. Enough. I hereby declare today ‘Absolutely Nothing in Particular’ Day. Feel free to do whatever you like, eat whatever you like, shop (or not), donate (or not), and in general, exercise your right to spend your day doing or not doing anything you’d like to do or not do. If any of that involves wine, beer, or spirits, we’ll be happy to help you celebrate.
Enjoy the day.