What is Sweetest Day? When is it?

Sweetest Day

Sweetest Day is a day similar to Valentine’s Day when people share romance or appreciation for one another. It occurs in October on the third Saturday of the month. For 2009, Sweetest Day is celebrated on October 17.

The holiday has its origins in 1922, when an Ohio man by the name of Herbert Birch Kingston wanted to spread joy to the neglected, orphans, and others with similar fates. As a candy business employee, Kingston and others in the Cleveland area began to give treats to the orphans and the poor. When actress Ann Pennington was in Cleveland, she celebrated Sweetest Day by giving out candy to more than two thousand newspaper boys as a sign of gratitude for their work. And Theda Bara gave away thousands of boxes containing chocolates to hospitals in the area, as well as to those who saw her movie.

Sweetest Day is celebrated primarily in the Great Lakes area of the United States – such as Ohio and Michigan - but it has slowly moved on to other parts of the country as well.

But wait! Is Sweetest Day even a holiday?

Is Sweetest Day a real holiday to celebrate general love and kindness, or is it merely a corporate-contrived event (conveniently placed during the school year, but before the Christmas sales season) designed to raise revenue on romance-related items?

Sweetest Day has been referred to - and probably cynically so - as a "Hallmark Holiday". Along with the commercialization of other holidays, it could be argued that the underlying raison d'tre of Sweetest Day appears to be money. Of course, Hallmark doesn't help the matter any through the admission on its own website that it was the first company to offer Sweetest Day greeting cards back in the 60s. This means that Hallmark did not actually initiate the holiday - we can fall back on the Mr. Kingston story (see above) for the actual creation. It might be said, however, that a) Hallmark is guilty of taking advantage of a local event and marketing it to the masses in order to make money, or b) Hallmark merely responded to the natural demand for Sweetest Day greeting cards and therefore provided a valuable service.

But assuming that a) is true, can you blame Hallmark (or any related company for that matter)? In a business whose revenues are linked to the popularity of numerous underlying occasions, the marketing of Sweetest Day is actually a pretty good idea for making money when you think about it. After it starts to become more and more popular, other businesses are going to join in on the new cultural awareness of the occasion.

Thus, a "holiday" is born into American culture, perhaps out of a celebratory mood to celebrate goodwill, perhaps out of corporate interests, or perhaps because of both.

Sources

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User Comments

Comment by on 2008-10-16 21:09:57
I always get my boo something 4 sweetest day! :))

Comment by on 2009-02-05 12:47:38
I got engaged in March 2008 and like all newly engaged couples, you choose your date and i just chose October 17th, 2009 because i just wanted a fall wedding regardless. I had no significance of that particular day until now, after reading into the whole "Sweetest Day" it will now be our "Sweetest Day" since the day falls on the third Saturday of October. So until now, being from Missouri though, it will definitely be a "holiday" to us.

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