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posted by [identity profile] printperson.livejournal.com at 09:59pm on 30/10/2006
In the US, Memorial Day is celebrated at the end of May and that is when disabled veterans sell poppies (or now, reproduction poppies). Since poppies are actually growing in the fields of Europe at that time, the poppies make perfect sense. I remember the thrill I had the first time I actually saw fields of poppies as I was travelling across France in June during my first trip to Europe. In elementary school we had to memorize and recite In Flander's Fields, so the poppies had meaning to me. BUT, I believe that Memorial Day was originally started as a commemoration of the Civil War, so perhaps the poppy flower symbolism was added after WW I.

To my knowledge, Armistice Day(now called Veterans Day),celebrated in the US on November 11, has no association with poppies.
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posted by [identity profile] a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com at 10:34pm on 30/10/2006
Memorial Day is the generic day for honoring the war dead, while Armistice Day was to commemorate the Armistice. AFAIK, poppies were associated with the November holdiay from its beginnings. Although it was later changed to Veterans' Day, the poppies have remained associated with it, whereas their association with Memorial Day is a much later convention and probably comes from governmental efforts to remind people why we have these holidays in the first place. I don't know that this was true for all of the US, but I do know it's true for the states I've lived in -- CA, WA, and GA.

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