Oh U Oh the Sweetest Day

I'm in a Walgreens in Chicago.... and I see all these hearts and candy and such in the Promotional aisle. Pretty early jump on Valentine's day, no? I mean you still have Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas coming down the pike. Turns out the stuff was for something called “Sweetest Day.” I'm told it's a Midwest thing. I never heard of this “holiday.” I guess it's some kind of odd lead in to Valentine's Day.

Sweetest Day is to Valentine's Day what PSAT is to SAT.

Most holidays, or at least the way we choose to celebrate them, are contrived thinly veiled sales campaigns. But it's more glaring when it's a holiday celebrated right in your own country that you never heard of. Like religions, the only things that separate a valid holiday from a shady one are the number of people who follow it and how long it's been around. With proper marketing, one hundred years from now, Sweetest Day may sit on the Mount Rushmore of holidays right up there with Christmas and Thanksgiving. For now it's on par with Flag day and still eons behind St. Patty's day. Even Ground Hog's Day, which is more of an event than a holiday, outshines Sweetest Day.

And what's the ramifications if Sweetest Day really takes hold? It will widen the Can't Breakup Time Block. (CBTB) This is the time of year when you don't want to break up with someone either because it'll be too devastating to them or you don't want to spend the holidays alone. The current generally accepted block runs from 2 weeks after Halloween til a week after Valentine's Day. Sweetest day is the third Saturday in October. So now we're talking about expanding the CBTB by a whole month. And if your boo that you're through with birthday's in say...May and your anniversary is in say... August. You may never have the chance to move or be moved on.

This holiday could kick start marriages born into resentment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetest_Day