holidays commercialized

I had a quick, easy drive to work on Monday. Why? Because it was President's Day. I wonder how many people who had the day off from work (not me) actually took some of that time to honor this nation's presidents. My guess: not many. President's Day seems to be an excuse to have a day off of work. When I think of President's Day, I instantly think of car companies promising big savings.

The only "holiday" (oops, did I put quotes on that...my bad) that might be more pointless is Labor Day. That was instated as a national holiday by Grover Cleveland in response to the death of some workers at Boston's Haymarket at the hands of the US Military & US Marshals during a strike. It was done to appease the labor unions. Only in America would you see a holiday celebrating labor by taking the day off. Labor Day is also known to be a good car-buying day (especially as retailers are looking to unload that year's model to make way for the next).

There are other insignificant holidays, significant ones that don't receive the respect they deserve (Memorial Day) and significant ones that do. Regardless of which category a holiday may fall into, they've all been commercialized. Much like President's Day and Labor Day car deals, each holiday has a lot of revenue tied into them.

Although I could undoubtedly spend hours covering all the facts and stats from each holiday, for time's sake I will focus on three discussion points: greeting cards in general, Valentine's Day and Black Friday weekend (notorious shopping weekend in anticipation of Christmas). I think that simply focusing on these three should be sufficient enough to make my point.

Greeting Cards (General) (source: Greeting Card Association)

• Americans purchase 7 billion greeting cards every year (retail sales estimated at $7.5 billion)
• The average person receives more than 20 greeting cards in a year (about 1/3 are birthday)
• Sales are split approximately 50-50 between Seasonal and Everyday cards
• Most popular Seasonal cards are Christmas and holiday (more than 60% or 2 billion last year)
• After Christmas/holiday cards, the most popular Seasonal cards in order are Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day and Graduation cards.
• (Also interesting but irrelevant to this discussion is that roughly 80% of greeting cards are purchased by women)

Valentine's Day (source: theromantic.com; their information is sourced on their website)

Roses/Flowers

• 110 million roses, the majority red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period
• Valentine's Day is the big time of year for red roses; Mother's Day meas more pastel roses
• The vast number of roses sold on Valentine's Day are imported (mostly from South America)
• 15% of US women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day (I'm sorry, but I find this stat sad and disheartening)
• 73% of purchasers of flower are men; 27% are women

Cards

• About 1 billion cards are exchanged each year
• 1/3 of cards are accompanied by gifts
• 70% celebrating the holiday give a card (followed by a telephone call 49%, gift 48%, special dinner 37%, candy 33%, restaurant meal 30% and flowers 19%)
• Teachers receive the most Valentine's Day cards (followed by children, mothers, wives and sweethearts)
• Children ages 6-10 exchange more than 650 million Valentine's cards with teachers, classmates and family members
• Hallmark has over 1330 different cards specifically for Valentine's Day

Chocolate & Candy

• According to NECCO, 8 billion "Conversation Hearts" are sold between Jan 1 and Feb 14
• More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are sold

Black Friday - Cyber Monday (source: LA Times citing the National Retail Federation's 2010 results)

• 212 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the four-day weekend (up from 195 million in 2009)
• The average shopper spent $365.34 (up from $343.31 in 2009)
• Total spending reached an estimated $45.0 billion
• The number of people who began shopping at midnight was 9.5% (up from 3.3% in 2009)
• Stores that opened on Thanksgiving (the day before Black Friday)  saw 22.3 million customers (up from 10.3 million in 2005)
• Jewelry, gift cards, toys, books and electronic entertainment all saw increase in purchases in 2010 over 2009

As I said, I could go on-and-on about how bad the commercialization of holidays has become. I'll spare you all the details. Suffice it to say, however, that we Americans fall for it hook, line and sinker and open our wallets on each occassion. I'm a victim to the mentality just like the next guy.

My only hope is that the meaning for these holidays isn't completely drowned out by the almighty dollar.