Rebecca Mildren's Blog - Posts Tagged "holiday"
National WHAT day?
Seriously, people, since when did you start letting marketers and lobbyists run your life? Apparently, today is national doughnut day. Which is not so horribly offensive, I guess, except for the fact that in the nearly 20 years since I've been away from the US, national days have sprung up like mushrooms after the rain. How does one even keep up with them all? What happened to just Earth Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day…?
There is now national popcorn day, national pizza day, national blueberry popover day, national zucchini bread day, national peanut butter cookie day, national lollipop day, national pancake day, and my favorite, which happens to fall on my birthday: national bicarbonate of soda day. (!!!) In fact, there are two national doughnut days. If you miss today's, you can catch it again in November. And those are just a few of the food days. Don't get me started on the rest that have nothing to do with food.
What I want to know, as an uninformed outsider, is who decides on all these days? Is there some government board? If not, how can these holidays be declared national days? And how exactly does one impose a national day of one's choosing? By collecting 100,000 signatures? By paying the right people? By starting an ad campaign? How is the specific date selected? Are there any sort of criteria for determining whether something warrants its own day? I'm sure I could do an Internet search about it all, but I'm curious as to whether anyone who is celebrating today can give me a straight answer to my questions.
And the worst part of all is that now, all I can think about is eating a doughnut!
There is now national popcorn day, national pizza day, national blueberry popover day, national zucchini bread day, national peanut butter cookie day, national lollipop day, national pancake day, and my favorite, which happens to fall on my birthday: national bicarbonate of soda day. (!!!) In fact, there are two national doughnut days. If you miss today's, you can catch it again in November. And those are just a few of the food days. Don't get me started on the rest that have nothing to do with food.
What I want to know, as an uninformed outsider, is who decides on all these days? Is there some government board? If not, how can these holidays be declared national days? And how exactly does one impose a national day of one's choosing? By collecting 100,000 signatures? By paying the right people? By starting an ad campaign? How is the specific date selected? Are there any sort of criteria for determining whether something warrants its own day? I'm sure I could do an Internet search about it all, but I'm curious as to whether anyone who is celebrating today can give me a straight answer to my questions.
And the worst part of all is that now, all I can think about is eating a doughnut!
