Sam’s Weekly Water Cooler Musings: On Holidays, Cards, and Being Left Out

Holidays have a much bigger role in our society than they used to, at least that’s what we decided in our latest chat session near the water cooler. You can tell this primarily through the build-up to them, or at least to the major ones. Time was when no one thought about Christmas until after Thanksgiving. It was like a mad rush between being thankful and being selfish (I know. I know. Christmas is about giving too). In that three week period the smell of nutmeg and ginger wafted through every shop we went into. People went in groups through their neighborhoods singing carols (of the primarily Christian variety), and before you knew it, Christmas Eve was upon us with mugs of warm cider and fresh gingerbread cooling on the stove. But that was then, and this is now. The Christmas rush starts at Halloween now, and in some places even sooner, consuming more time, more space, and more… MONEY. And that’s the key to holidays these days. Money.

“The more money we spend on a holiday, the more important it is to us.”

The more money we spend on a holiday, the more important it is to us, at least according to my cooler crew (that name just might stick). Case in point, the holidays that we spend the most money on are, again, according to the crew — and don’t forget, we work in retail):

1. Christmas

2. Mother’s Day

3. Valentine’s Day

4. Easter

5. Halloween

Of these, only Christmas and Mother’s Day are official holidays, as recognized by the U.S. What does this mean? It means that we, as a society, have created holidays for the express purpose of spending money on each other and on ourselves. And the biggest industry to benefit from these created holidays is — you guessed it — the card industry! Christmas cards are numerous and varied, cards ranging from $1.99 to $8.99, and sometimes above, if you want sound, or fancy card stock, or an oddly shaped card. Then there are the packages of cards that we can send out to our family and friends, which are also very expensive. Then there’s the cost of stamps too… for a card that will probably be up on someone’s mantel for three weeks, then it will head to file 13 (the garbage). Seems like such a waste, right? But it’s a social construct, and we observe it because we’re social beings, and we bend the knee to all social constructs, or at least the ones to which our family and friends give credence.

Some day, a long time ago, someone said to herself, “You know, it would be really cool if we had one day where we could appreciate our mothers.” And what has Mother’s Day morphed into now? Now, if you don’t send your mother a bouquet of flowers that have been marked up so you can get them on “sale,” you’re a loser who doesn’t love your mother. It doesn’t matter if you do things for her all year around, if there isn’t a card and flowers on Mother’s Day — boom. That was the sound of the door slamming in your face. Seems pretty arbitrary to me, and yet I still give my mom a card and flowers for Mother’s Day, and I’m sure you do too.

No one likes to be left out. Even if they don’t quite get why they should be doing it.

Sam

Sam’s Weekly Water Cooler Musings: The Archive