Hallmark holiday

"Hallmark holiday" is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe a holiday that is perceived to exist primarily for commercial purposes, rather than to commemorate a traditionally or historically significant event. The name comes from Hallmark Cards, a privately owned American company, that benefits from such manufactured events through sales of greeting cards and other items. Holidays that have been referred to as "Hallmark Holidays" include Grandparent's Day, Sweetest Day, Boss's Day, and Secretary's Day. Some people also consider St. Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Father's Day to be such a day.

The Hallmark corporation denies that it creates such holidays and claims that it "wish[es] it were so easy that we could dream up products and people would flock to our stores to buy them", and that they only do it when there is "a real consumer need that we meet with our products." In popular culture, fictional department store Costingtons was depicted as creating a new holiday called Love Day on The Simpsons episode Trash of the Titans.

See also

• Anna Jarvis and Mother's Day
• Father's Day
• List of food days

Further reading

• Linda Mooney and Sarah Brabant (1998). "[Off the Rack: Store Bought Emotions and the Presentation of Self". Electronic Journal of Sociology 3 (4]http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/mooney.html). 
• Leigh Eric Schmidt (December 1991). "The Commercialization of the Calendar: American Holidays and the Culture of Consumption, 1870-1930". Journal of American History (Organization of American Historians) 78 (3): 887–916. doi:10.2307/2078795. JSTOR 2078795.