On Labor Day (and other hollowed holidays)

No, that's not a typo. I did mean "hollowed" rather than "hallowed". It seems that as more years go by, these three-day holiday weekends are further and further removed from the origins and intent of the events that spawned them, so they have been sort of hollowed out. Now they seem to be uniformly about beer (nothing wrong with that) barbeques and much-needed time off for the beleaguered American worker, who works longer and harder than anyone in the industrialized world (if they get any time off at all in this service economy). And mattress sales. I don't know what it is about three-day weekends and mattress sales, but you could realistically change Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day to Mattress Sale Day One, Two and Three to avoid confusion.

Labor Day in particular has been hollowed out by the fog of time. It was originally proposed by an American machinist in 1882 to celebrate workers and promoted by the American union movement. It was formally adopted as a Federal holiday in 1894. International Workers Day, celebrated pretty much by the rest of the world on May 1, actually has is its origins in an American event -- the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886, when police fired on workers protesting for an eight hour workday, killing four. Still most Americans are unaware of the union and socialist origins of Labor Day, and a Republican lawmaker even went so far as to say that Labor Day is a chance to express appreciation for all those business owners that create jobs. Now I'm a business owner but even I went -- huh?

So what does all this mean to your communications? Well, usually people in business feel compelled to say something about a holiday that sounds wholesome and appropriate, like one client who on Memorial Day insisted on using that occasion to thank the brave men and women around the world who are protecting our freedom. Well Memorial Day is about remembering men and women in our armed forces who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the past and hopefully the service men and women they were referring to will never have to make that sacrifice. Or on Veteran's Day, where it's more appropriate, thanking men and women for their service on your website or Facebook page becomes like wallpaper because everyone is saying it. So here are some tips for making the most out of acknowledging a holiday:

• Make it specific to the original meaning of the holiday
• Tie the origin of the holiday to how we live today
• Put some meat behind it: If it's Labor Day talk about what you're doing for your employees, if it's Veterans Day, talk about the support you give to veteran organizations and so on. 

If you do this, your message will resonate with more depth, will more likely get noticed on the Web and in social media and you just might educate a few people too.