Everyone knows the long-standing holidays that have been celebrated over the decades, and even centuries: Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Easter, and all  the other pre-existing and well-known holidays. However, there are more “holidays” than there appear to be. Among these are lesser-known ones, such as National Chocolate-Covered Cherry Day, National Fondue Month, Bean Day, Oranges and Lemons Day, and so on (Duckor, The 27 Most Hilariously Unnecessary National Food Holidays). And these are only a minute portion of all the other ridiculous and disposable celebrations. Even the ones we currently celebrate are completely absurd, especially knowing that shoppers spent over $13 billion on Valentine’s Day (statisticbrain.com, Valentine’s Day Statistics) and even more on Christmas, with a spending average of over $830 billion on gifts (statistica.com, The Statistics Portal). It’s no enigma that U.S. holidays are created primarily for the purpose of business. So what exactly is the problem with the minor holidays?
Even the minor holidays exist for business exclusively. That’s obviously why they are so specific. Any of these holidays (especially ones like Orange and Lemons Day) could be celebrated on a daily basis if one wanted to, and thus don’t need to be established for any reason. And, not surprisingly, businesses take advantage of these opportunities. Yogurtland gives free yogurt every February 2nd as a result of National Frozen Yogurt Day (Yogurtland.com).  This is not done simply because the company “cares” about the customers or their needs, but as promotion for their rewards cards, and even other companies. In other words, more money is made by sponsoring the company during “holidays” like these, proving that these are just as unnecessary as the ones we already have. Some of these (most of them, I’d have to add) aren’t even celebrated, such as Columbus Day. These empty holidays (and all holidays for that matter) were created for the purpose of earning legal tender and don’t contribute anything.