'Last Week Tonight,' Labor Day White, And Seven Other Things We Should Stop Doing For Holidays

By Emily Cutler | Last Week Tonight | September 6, 2016 |

By Emily Cutler | Last Week Tonight | September 6, 2016 |

I’m not saying John Oliver doesn’t hit some important topics in his video, I’m just saying there are far too many to list in a three-minute video. Given how much Last Week Tonight has helped my writing career, I feel it’s only fair that I give a little back to them. So I give you:

The Seven Most Arbitrary Holiday Rules We Need To Strictly Enforce

1) Stop honoring our troops and veterans on Labor Day. Or at least reduce the honoring to as much as we should be honoring those men and women on any other day. The name of the holiday is literally telling everyone exactly what it’s about. This isn’t some mysterious Boxing Day nonsense. Labor Day is literal.

2) Fireworks are for the 4th of July. Not the 18th of August or any point in the summer you feel like. You get nine calendar days (the Friday before through the Saturday after the actual holiday) to light off your fireworks. Then you’re done. Seriously the dogs are dying here.

3) Columbus Day? Really? If we want to be accurate about this, we probably should start calling it The Original Max Landis School Of Failing Upward Day. Here’s a dude who “discovered” an entire New World just 500 years after a group of other dudes “discovered” it. Columbus managed to discover all those millions of indigenous people who just happened to be living on the land he discovered. Outside of all of the horrific bullshit that resulted from Columbus’ “discovery,” there’s the fact that the guy didn’t even do what he set out to do. Everyone who still wants to honor this jackhole, instead of acknowledging and learning about all of the Native American tribes who were decimated, should have to wear a “I Got Lost, Murdered Millions, And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt” shirt.

4) April Fool’s Day is canceled.

5) All of the holiday creeps are put on notice. This applies to both people who behave creepily under the guise of celebrating a holiday

and holidays trying to start their turns earlier and earlier every year. Christmas decorations are not allowed up before the first of December. Halloween costumes should be planned no more than three weeks in advance. Thanksgiving is being entirely lost in the shuffle, people! This is serious!

6) Unimportant holidays shall no longer be listed on Facebook, smartphone or computer calendars. No one cares when Flag Day is. If you want to know, you have to Google it.

7) The next person who refers to Thanksgiving as “Turkey Day” gets a hand cut off. Turkey is the second to last worst dish served at Thanksgiving. Stop making the day about the Bullshit Bird.