the dumbest holiday of the year

As long as I'm blogging, let me set the record straight on something. For as long as I can remember, I've claimed that Valentine's Day is the stupidest, most pointless holiday celebrated in America. I mean, it's totally commercially-driven and does a very poor job of masquerading as anything meaningful (even when love is mentioned it's almost always in the context of a dinner out or jewelry or something), and it doesn't cause us to ponder any significant events in history. It's as if people wanted a holiday in the middle of winter so they'd have a reason to get excited and spend money, and what better way to go about that than play to the emotions?

However, it's ironic that I should post this on Valentine's Day because I must correct myself. I've put some thought into it and concluded that this day isn't so bad. Yeah, it causes all the restaurants to clog up, but I rarely eat out anymore anyway so that's not a big deal. It results in lots of bothersome mushy commercials and ads and stuff, but I never watch TV anymore and only do minimal shopping in the first place so that's not too bad either. It can cause some annoying chatter and overdone drama and similar crap, but that dynamic hasn't been too noticeable this time around. And on top of all that, Valentine's Day candy is awesome and it always goes on sale the day after, so I get a welcome chance to splurge and score some unhealthy stuff that I otherwise wouldn't plunk down money on. So overall it's not so bad and even presents some opportunities.

By my criteria of ranking holidays in dumbness (commercialism, negative interference with my life, lack of historical significance), I think Labor Day takes the cake. We celebrate work by giving people an excuse to not work? Whatever. It's not like there aren't any other off-days during the year. And there are certainly plenty of other days worthy of time off to celebrate and remember someone or something of historical significance. There are also plenty of better excuses to just take a day off for no other reason. So even though I get Labor Day off, I don't think it's really a meaningful holiday as much as an excuse to slap a holiday in the middle of a chunk of calendar space otherwise devoid of them.

That's cute and all, but I'd rather just have another vacation day. Come to think of it, that applies to every holiday I'm off for. A few more days of vacation time to use anywhere in the year would do me wonders right about now.