9 reasons why Memorial Day is the best holiday of the year

Memorial Day might not get the publicity of, say, Christmas or Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a lot going for it in its own right. In fact, you could make a case that Memorial Day is the best holiday of them all. Now that may seem a little macabre given that it’s a day to honor our dead, and the fallen soldiers who help keep us from speaking Russian or Hitlerese, but it’s true, Memorial Day is awesome. And if you don’t believe me, here are nine reasons why Memorial Day just might be the best holiday all year.

9. It’s Celebrated Outdoors

Look, after being shuttered up indoors all winter like Jack Torrance in The Shining, you can’t really understate how awesome it is to get to celebrate outdoors. The sun finally starts shining, the temperature kicks things up a few notches, and that hazy gloom you’ve lived with for the past six months suddenly seems like little more than a distant memory. Frankly, you could be doing anything outdoors – picnicking with the family, playing basketball with your boys, staring at trees, whatever – and it’s going to feel like a relaxed, refreshing holiday. This is a big, big part of Memorial Day’s appeal right here. And the best part is that you don’t end up chasing your family through a remote and haunted hotel with a giant axe. Man, winter sucks.

8. It’s Social

When I say “social,” that’s really a code for “partying with your friends.” While most holidays are all about gathering together with family and pretending to care what Uncle Charlie did with the boat all winter, or trying not to throw up when Aunt Edna asks you to rub the corns on her feet, Memorial Day is all about getting together with friends and going balls out like, well, like you’ve been cooped up for the last six months. Pay your respects to the fallen in the morning, party with your friends like the lost members of Mötley Crüe all afternoon and night. It’s the American way.

7. Cookouts

There is no more relaxing feeling in the world than just closing your eyes on a beautiful Memorial Day afternoon and smelling all the sweet, sweet grilling in the air. Finally, you can stop huddling around a pot of boiling potatoes in the house all winter like some tragically bored Russian housewife and get in touch with your inner grill-master. Everything else is coming to life, and so your culinary experience should too. Besides, who doesn’t love the social aspect of a good cookout? Nothing says a perfect American Memorial Day like just chilling with your friends, copious amounts of meat on the grill, a beer in your hand, and a smiling sun in the sky. God bless America and God bless the cookout.

6. Beer

No holiday is more alcohol friendly than Memorial Day. It’s one of the few days of the year when day-drinking is not only tolerated, it’s expected. Sure, St. Patrick’s Day might have it beat for sheer alcohol consumption, but that day is really like a manic race to alcohol poisoning rather than just a relaxing celebration of American life. Memorial Day, though, is all about just taking your time, drinking the day slowly away, one delicious beer at a time, until the sun drops and you realize that you’re completely shitfaced with your friends. But not in a pass out and vomit everywhere kind of way, but in a “this was awesome, let’s do it again soon,” kind of way. Done right, Memorial Day is a beer commercial brought to life.

5. Indy 500

The true secret behind Memorial Day’s awesomeness is that it’s actually an entire weekend. Sure, Memorial Day itself is the culmination of the whole thing, but it’s really a multi-day celebration, and one of the annual highlights of that celebration is the Indy 500. Sure, no one pays attention to Indy car racing the rest of the year, but that’s kind of what makes it special. It’s an Event with a capital ‘E’ like the Kentucky Derby, an excuse to revel in the decadence of America itself. You don’t watch the Indy 500 because you’re a huge racing fan. No, you watch because it means something culturally. You watch because it’s about being a part of something bigger than yourself. You watch because the Indy 500 is America in all its ridiculous glory.

4. Boating

Memorial Day is the day when most people get out on the water for the first time all year, but when I say boating, I really mean floating in a bay with a bunch of friends and strangers, your boats lined up together while you get delightfully hammered. I’m not talking sailing with Lord Tightass. I’m talking boat parties. If you’ve never experienced this, you’re missing out. Imagine a party, only everyone is already half naked, and, well, did I mention everyone is already half naked? It’s a celebration of both the end of winter and the beginning of summer, that time of year when man reclaims the waterways as his own and sheds the clothing – both literal and metaphorical – of winter. Oh, and flying over waves going 70 mph is pretty goddamn fun too. Let’s be real here.

3. The Beach

If you don’t have access to a boat, don’t worry, because Memorial Day also unofficially opens up beach season. And if I have to explain to you why the beach is awesome, then I’m not sure we can be friends. The beach is the ultimate metaphor for the American Dream. I mean, we literally coined a term – Manifest Destiny – tamed the Wild West, destroyed entire species, wiped out cultures and committed heinous crimes against man and nature, just so we could spend the day chilling on the beach next to the Pacific Ocean. Sure, that’s dark as hell, but let’s not front, the beach is our spiritual home as a nation, and if all the buffalo had to die just so we can spend Memorial Day half in the bag, getting a sweet suntan surrounded by beautiful women in bikinis, then so be it. So be it. At least they died for an honorable cause.

2. America

Because fuck yeah, America, that’s why.

1. It’s the Beginning of Summer

If there is a common theme threading its way through all of these so far, this is it. Memorial Day is all about the unofficial start of summer. It’s that moment when we collectively as a culture let go of the doldrums of winter and bask in the eternal promise and possibility of summer. Every summer has the potential to be the best one ever, and that all starts on Memorial Day. It’s the most optimistic of all the holidays, and everything that goes along with it – the cookouts, the beer, the boats, the beach, all of it – are just manifestations of that optimism. It’s a day when we can forget all our troubles and revel in the timeless beauty of summer, when the sun shines, the world is perfect and you can convince yourself that it will never, ever end. And that’s why Memorial Day is the best holiday of them all.

Bikini girl image by Shutterstock
Cookout image by Shutterstock
Woman on boat image by Shutterstock
Summer image by Shutterstock