Saturday, October 17, 2009

Happy Sweetest Day

I didn't know that Sweetest Day originated in Cleveland and that not everyone celebrates it or even knows about it. Here is the Wikipedia story behind the day.

The origin of Sweetest Day is frequently attributed to candy company employee Herbert Birch Kingston as an act of philanthropy. However, Bill Lubinger, a reporter for The Plain Dealer, contends that "Dozens of Cleveland's top candy makers concocted the promotion 84 years ago and it stuck, although it never became as widely accepted as hoped." The Cleveland Plain Dealer's October 8, 1921 edition, which chronicles the first Sweetest Day in Cleveland, states that the first Sweetest Day was planned by a committee of 12 confectioners chaired by candymaker C. C. Hartzell. The Sweetest Day in the Year Committee distributed over 20,000 boxes of candy to "newsboys, orphans, old folks, and the poor" in Cleveland, Ohio. The Sweetest Day in the Year Committee was assisted in the distribution of candy by some of the biggest movie stars of the day including Theda Bara and Ann Pennington.

Sweetest Day now involves giving small gifts and cards to your loved ones.

So we woke up today and Lou said..."I have a card for you but I haven't signed it yet" and I said "I have a card for you too ,but I can't find it" And we both started laughing.

2 comments:

Katie said...

Fun facts! I knew it started in Cleveland but I always thought American Greetings originated it. Just show to go you learn something new every day. ;-)

Elaine said...

That's hilarious! I broke up once on Sweetest Day, kind of ruined it for me.