The Risks And Rewards Of Making Every Day A Holiday

Did you remember to skip the straw yesterday (Feb. 26)? Or eat your pistachios, or write a letter to your grandmother? Did you make your chili on Thursday, or the clam chowder the date so clearly called for? Have you paid your proper respects to a polar bear yet today (Feb. 27), eaten a strawberry, played Pokemon or properly appreciated the role protein plays in your diet?

Many reading this list are no doubt confused at this point, and wondering how exactly we came up with such a strange list of activities for the last weekend in February — but we at PYMNTS are nothing if not festive. So festive, in fact, that we keep abreast of all the #NationalDaysOnThe Register — all 1,500 of them. And if you find yourself noting that 1,500 is roughly four times the number of days in a year — well, that’s why chili and clam chowder both share a celebration day, as do National Write Your Elders Day and National Pistachio Day.

Now, some “national days” are more official than others, with a select few created by presidential proclamation: National Grandparent Day (first Sunday after Labor Day), National Good Neighbor Say (Sept. 28) and National Ice Cream Day (third Sunday of National Ice Cream Month, declared as July by Ronald Reagan in 1984). The proclamation (No. 5219) declared ice cream “a nutritious and wholesome food, enjoyed by over 90 percent of the people in the United States. It enjoys a reputation as the perfect dessert and snack food.”

Ice cream is no doubt delicious and deserving of its month of honor — but surely other snack foods somewhat less perfect in form and presentation deserve a day all their own. Twinkies are rumored to have a shelf life longer than human civilization — surely that warrants a national day of recognition. As it turns out, it’s April 6, reportedly the day Twinkies first rolled off the line and into the hands of the American people in 1930.

A presidential proclamation isn’t the only way to get a national day. Like most things of value in this world, it is also possible to buy one. The good folks at the National Day Calendar will sell one to you, starting at the bargain price of $25,000, plus an annual commitment of $2,500 in products or services for prize giveaways. And that’s just the baseline price to be considered for a National Day submission — their packages go up to $50,000 and $100,000, depending on how much additional marketing support a  buyer wants to invest in.

For those looking for less expensive and less marketing-intensive packages, other options exist that start as low as $99, though that only gets you a national proclamation day. The bargain-basement price to be included in a National Day archive seems to be around $500.

And notably, being willing to show up and pay isn’t always enough to make it. According to the National Day Archives, the process is somewhat selective. According to the website, “only 30 new days are added annually from over 20,000 submitted applications.” Getting into the National Day spotlight, as it turns out, requires both a large amount of money and a worthy cause for celebration.

So imagine our shock here at PYMNTS when we learned that payments doesn’t have any kind of a national day all its own. Well, there was National Equal Pay Day, but that seemed more about bringing attention to the gender pay gap than celebrating the wonder of modern payments technology. And so we have some suggestions for a few holidays and how we should celebrate them, for any payments peeps out there looking for creative ways to spend tens of thousands of dollars.

National Cryptocurrency Day: Celebrated by eating cupcakes. If the cupcakes are purchased at the start of the day, they cost 13 cents apiece. If bought at 10 a.m., they cost $10,000. At noon, they cost $50,000. At 3 p.m., they cost $500. At 7 p.m., they cost $75,000. And at closing time at 9 p.m., the baker pays you $20 apiece to take them.

National Contactless Payment Day: Celebrated by staying as far away from other people as possible and waving vigorously at them while tapping a card, scanning a QR code or picking up a meal curbside.

National Delivery on Demand Day: Celebrated on Zoom, a holiday for Americans to show off their recent delivery to friends and family, followed by the streaming of the traditional holiday meal ordered from Uber Eats or DoorDash.

National Buy Now, Pay Later Day(s): One holiday with its celebration broken into four parts, to be celebrated monthly.

And, of course ….

National Payments Day: We even have a date for this one — Oct. 20, a spot currently held by Brandied Fruit. We have nothing against brandied fruit, but we think payments has a special claim on the 20th day of October. That is the day in 2014 when Apple Pay officially launched — and, we would modestly argue more importantly, it is the day in 2009 when PYMNTS.com made its online debut.

We’re just saying: A holiday that could be successfully celebrated by buying or selling literally anything? Well, there are worse reasons to eat cake.