Wearin' O'the Green

It's a little strange to me that most US holidays have colors associated with them. Today, St. Patrick's Day, is highly attached to the color green. This makes some sense, since shamrocks are a symbol of Ireland and they, being a form of grass, are green. Shamrocks=green=Ireland=holiday celebrating the Irish=wear a green sweater (and pants if you're over 65).

Some of the other holidays that have color associations:
New Year's=gold & silver. Perhaps, representing money and prosperity for the coming year. More likely the color of the stars you see when you wake up the next morning after having drunk too much bad champagne.

Valentine's Day=red. The color of the human heart? Maybe, though I think it's more purple than red. But red sure is the color of overpriced roses and the lifeblood drained from people as they spend too much money on teddy bears and chocolate hearts.

Easter=pastels like baby blue, light yellow, and lavender. A holiday straight out of a 1950's interior design text. I guess bunnies like soft colors. Oh, and Jesus. Didn't he preach about spring greens and cream-filled eggs?


Memorial Day=no color at all. Unless you count the color of hotdogs, cause we eat them at our bbq's, which we hold to remember what this holiday is for.

Fourth of July=red, white & blue. For obvious reasons. Bombs blow up causing fire and death. Red. Lots of caucasians start wars; they're white people. Our current president makes us sad. Blue.

Labor Day=another colorless holiday. What color is work, and why do we celebrate the practice of it?

Halloween=orange and black. Pumpkins and death? I like this. It's simple. But, considering that we put on costumes of all color, hand out candy of all kinds and hang a lot of spider webs and dismembered limbs (is that just me?), having just 2 colors for this holiday is silly.

Thanksgiving=the color of turkeys. I guess that's brown and red. And didn't pilgrims wear brown? And Native Americans were always red in the books published when I was a kid. And when the people in brown entered the land of the red people, wiping them out with disease and land mongering within a few generations, we celebrate this useless holiday.

And that brings us to the end of the year and
Christmas=green and red. Green for pine trees and red for...I'm drawing a blank. Santa Claus? Candy canes? The Red Sox winning the World Series? Or, at risk of exploiting the blood theme, the death of thousands of pagans at the hands of the Catholic church when they refused to convert to Christianity. For their pain, we now celebrate xmas with trees, gift-giving and carolling, much different from the evergreen boughs, gift-giving and the singing of songs from door to door practiced by the pagans. Yay, church!

That wraps up the color associations. Sorry if I left out Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Passover, Yom Kippur, Boxing Day, Chinese New Year, Ramadan and the hundreds of other non-Western, non-Christian holidays. I only know the silly color associations of the American variety.
And don't be offended, mostly I based this on M&M's; they make colors for most holidays which match those described here.

Have a safe St. Paddy's - drink a green beer (of course) or two. It's good for you. And very American.