Veterans/Armistice/Remembrance Day

NogDog

To those of you outside of the USA who have something similar to our Veterans Day holiday, I'm just curious about something. It seems like this year more than ever, I'm seeing advertisements here for Veterans Day sales at major retail stores and shopping centers, and they talk about "celebrating" Veterans Day.

This is not to be unexpected, I guess, since we commercialize every other holiday, with the commercials for Christmas gifts and sales already starting now. :rolleyes: It just seems so contrary to what should be a somber day of remembrance, sorrow, and thanks to those who have served and especially those who paid the ultimate price, that it seems wrong to talk about "celebrating" it and trivializing it with shopping sales.

And so I'm wondering: do those of you elsewhere who have an Armistice Day or Remembrance Day tomorrow* also have any such commercialization of the holiday, or is it just our materialistic, capitalistic American society that would conceive of such a thing?

(Please, try to keep your responses respectful of others and not too judgmental. I'm just asking to satisfy my curiosity as to how unique or common this commercialism of anything tendency is, not to start any international flame wars.)

Hmm...maybe another questionnaire some time: do the US youngsters here still get taught why Veterans day is on November 11?

wilku

Yesterday ( 11 Nov) was Independence Day in Poland. Thankfully all shops were closed (obligatory). So it hasn't come to that here yet.
A couple of years ago I visited UK in October and was shocked with Christmass preparation in some of the supermarkets. This year a day after All Saints Day (1 Nov) our supermarkets started announcing Christmass offers and sales. I mean 2 months before? Come on. Commerce is really trying to take advantage of everything, be it religious or patriotic event. Every occasion is good to make some money.

NogDog

wilku wrote:
Yesterday ( 11 Nov) was Independence Day in Poland. Thankfully all shops were closed (obligatory). So it hasn't come to that here yet.
A couple of years ago I visited UK in October and was shocked with Christmass preparation in some of the supermarkets. This year a day after All Saints Day (1 Nov) our supermarkets started announcing Christmass offers and sales. I mean 2 months before? Come on. Commerce is really trying to take advantage of everything, be it religious or patriotic event. Every occasion is good to make some money.

Sounds like Poland has pretty much completed the transition from socialism to capitalism, then. 😉 :rolleyes: Same thing happens here, and it seems that the Christmas advertisements start earlier and earlier every year.

piersk

wilku wrote:
A couple of years ago I visited UK in October and was shocked with Christmass preparation in some of the supermarkets.

Thats nothing! I was in Selfridges (big dept store in London) on Aug 31st this year and they already had Christmas decorations up. This is a shot of a supermarket in the UK selling advent calendars. Check out the "taken on date".

As for Remembrance Day (as we know it as here), it's not really commercialised. You get people selling poppies for charity and nearly every shop/company/etc "downs tools" for a couple of minutes at 11am, usually punctuated by someone's mobile phone going off or something. As a rule though, people stick to it.

stolzyboy

NogDog wrote:
Sounds like Poland has pretty much completed the transition from socialism to capitalism, then. 😉 :rolleyes: Same thing happens here, and it seems that the Christmas advertisements start earlier and earlier every year.

No kidding, pretty soon they'll be advertising for Christmas of the next year on Dec. 26!

It wasn't even halloween and they were advertising Christmas stuff, playing Christmas songs on the radio, etc... it's ridiculous.