At the grocery store today, an acquaintance of my wife told her to “Have a happy Memorial Day! Bye now!”
Seriously? Do we have to make every holiday happy, especially one that is meant to remember military members who have died in battle? How can you even do that? “Have a nice three day weekend” I can accept, sure it’s the start of summer and all.
I guess I’ll have a happy Memorial Day while visiting my parents’ graves at the Veterans Cemetery.
Perhaps not the lamest pitting ever, but the lamest I’ve ever personally encountered.
Telling people to have a happy Memorial Day isn’t what makes it a happy holiday. The fact that 99% of Americans mark the holiday by having a fun picnic and kick off the summer is what makes it a happy holiday. It’s nice you spend the day remembering your parents but you’re an extremely small minority.
I’ll agree with the OP. Memorial Day is not a celebratory holiday. It’s meant to remember those who have died to defend our country. It’s meant to be serious and somber.
It’s turned into a three day weekend that includes the Indianapolis 500, picnics, and so on, but that doesn’t make it a celebratory holiday like Thanksgiving or New Year.
Wishing someone a “Happy Memorial Day” is about as inane a wish as I can think of.
Certainly, the best way to pay respect to somebody’s memory is to get all depressed and serious. Celebrating their life and making their remembrance joyous is totally lame.
Do you wish people a “Happy Memorial Day”?
Happy. Great. Good. Nice. I use them interchangeably. And I’ve never once been given a reproachful glance because of it. Mostly, I imagine, because the people with whom I share my holidays choose to honor their friends and family and the American military by celebrating. I did a brief survey, actually. While I was typing this response, I asked a couple of my friends if they’d react strangely to somebody wishing them a " happy Memorial Day," and none of them would, unsurprisingly. I think it’s because their hearts are large enough to hold, simultaneously, both solemnity and gratitude, the latter which, I think, is expressed more appropriately through celebration. They can pay their respects without reveling in the gloomy.
Maybe from this point forward I’ll start wishing everybody a “serious and somber Memorial Day.”
Happy Memorial Day, Frank.
This is the single most innocuous subject of a pitting that I’ve ever encountered.
Most people get the whole day off from work. Do you really spend the whole day moping around the cemetery? We usually go to the town ceremony for the war dead, which takes maybe an hour, and then go have fun on the beach. I’m sure most deceased military personal would appreciate the gesture of going to the ceremony, and not hold having a “happy” time at the beach against us.
Assuming an atheist viewpoint in regards the afterlife, the dead don’t care. Assuming a religious viewpoint, they’re either busy contemplating the ineffable majesty of Divine Love or burning in torment, either way they still don’t care. Memorials are for the living.
YES IT’S A THREE DAY WEEKEND GOD I NEEDED THIS
sorry, what were you saying about remembering something or other?
Hah. I just sent a text saying, “Happy M. Day. Thanks for fighting for my freedoms ;)” to a friend.
I love the holiday, actually. I give due diligence to military members…and my best recipes. It’s a celebration of Americana. July 4th is about ideology and Memorial Day is about defending it, I suppose.
Nobody gives a shit. Shut the fuck up, pass me a hot dog, and stop being such a bitch.
What a bunch of killjoys. I suppose next you’ll be telling me that VT’s Rockin’ 9/11 Bonfire Bacchanalia is in “poor taste”?
Someone is trying to be pleasant to you and you question their intelligence and call them names. You’ve got to love the curmudgeons of the world, spreading their little ray of self-righteous sunshine wherever they go.
The OP is quite right. The greeting should be “Have a depressing Memorial Day”.
My greeting is always “have a safe Memorial Day Weekend,” for this starts the beginning of the season of increased MVAs, accidental drownings, fingers being blown off by fireworks, and the occasional Jart through the skull.
Jarts rule.
And nothing says ‘serious and somber’ like a
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