Memorial Day was first recognized as a holiday, honoring those who died in service to a grateful nation, in 1868. By 1869, according to Time Magazine’s Merrill Fabry, Americans “were already seeing that the ‘joy’ side of Memorial Day was beginning to outweigh the remembrance [side].”

The occasion’s somber purpose has been further co-opted with the passage of 150 years. The Memorial Day of the present is a three-day weekend of blowout sales and raucous start of summer celebrations. Perhaps the cause is the growing divide between civilians and servicemembers, or perhaps because commemorating the dead can seem a dour task when the world has returned to life after a long winter, many Americans prefer to spend Memorial Day sans tribute.