Today’s holiday (Valentine’s Day) got me thinking about how the various major holidays scattered over the calendar are associated with specific colors and behaviors. The granddaddy of ’em all, Christmas, is the Red Holiday, which is associated with spending yourself into debt to get gifts for everyone and drinking rum-spiced eggnog. (The birth of Christ is an afterthought for most of us by now.) Valentine’s Day is the Pink Holiday and is for spending money on one’s sweetheart to demonstrate the level of one’s appreciation/sacrifice. Sorry, no drinking. Easter is the Yellow Holiday, probably pastel, and is for chasing colored eggs and purchasing baskets of goodies. Oh, and the risen saviour. Again, sorry, no drinking (unless you count sacramental wine.) The Green Holiday is St. Patrick’s Day, and is for drinking. Some wear some bit of green clothing, but it’s mostly about the drinking.
The Blue Holiday is arguably Independence Day. It’s all about fireworks, barbeque, and drinking (specifically beer, maybe some whiskey). The Orange Holiday is Halloween. It’s not about drinking; it’s about sugar. It used to be about facing our fears, but we got too scared for that. The Brown Holiday is obviously Thanksgiving. Drinking isn’t the centerpiece, feasting is. Unless of course you take your feasting with lots of drinking. The Silver Holiday is New Year’s Day. We don’t actually celebrate it on the day of but on the eve of by — you guessed it — drinking … excessively.
Holidays not associated with specific colors include Labor Day (gray?), Memorial Day (burgundy?), Veteran’s Day, President’s Day (white for linen sales?), and Martin Luther King Day (black? except someone will be offended). Colors not yet taken are probably too numerous still, but gold and purple figure highly.
Of course, some will insist upon some holiday I’ve overlooked, such as Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Mardi Gras. Go for it. Assign your own colors. However, I refuse to acknowledge purely concocted holidays like Sweetest Day.
Creative Destruction 
Who says you can’t mooch colors?
Labor Day surely must be red. Memorial Day is a better candidate for gray (gravestones). President’s Day has been superceded by Valentine’s Day.
Liturgical churches go farther and actually assign colors to liturgical seasons. Green in the long days of summer, purple, IIRC for Advent.
Comment by ohwilleke — February 15, 2007 @ 9:50 pm |
Mardis Gras lacks a color, but the day after Ash Wednesday, is black or gray.
Comment by ohwilleke — February 15, 2007 @ 9:51 pm |
I think that Martin Luther King Jr. Day should be the black holiday and Columbus Day the white holiday.
Comment by Glaivester — February 17, 2007 @ 1:24 pm |
mardi gras colors are purple green and gold, as anyone from nawlins can tell y’all. 🙂
i forget whether it’s memorial day or veterans’ day that’s associated with poppies, but poppy red would be it’s color.
columbus day should be the blood red holiday, for all the native blood spilt by the european invasion.
mlk day colors should be the red yellow green & black. i don’t know the origins of the colors, but i see many flags with those colors in my neighborhood.
i totally agree with white as presidents’ day, for all the dead white guys who’ve ruled this country.
for labor day i’d nominate grey, the color of most workers’ drudgery as cogs in the machine. or money green, for the money made by the rich off the backs of the laborer.
Comment by proud to swim home — February 19, 2007 @ 2:00 pm |
Reblogged this on The Spiral Staircase and commented:
Considering the over-seriousness of most of my blog posts, here’s something lighter from the archives of my dead group blog.
Comment by Brutus — June 16, 2019 @ 1:29 pm |