DATE: Sunday, September 7, 1997             TAG: 9709050105

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E20  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEPHEN KIEHL, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   66 lines

IT'S GRANDPARENT'S DAY - BUT DO YOU REALLY CARE?

IF YOU JUDGE affection by greeting cards, then Americans like their grandparents just slightly more than their sweethearts and their bosses.

Today is Grandparent's Day, and, according to Hallmark research, about 4 million Grandparent's Day cards will be given this year. That makes the holiday the 13th-largest card-sending occasion in the country.

No. 14 is National Sweetest Day, a knock-off of Valentine's Day that is coming up on Oct. 18. And No. 18 is National Boss Day, which is Oct. 16 this year.

Grandparent's Day was created in 1978 through a joint Congressional resolution signed by President Jimmy Carter. A grandfather from Atlanta is credited with pushing for the legislation.

In the 19 years since, Grandparent's Day doesn't seem to have caught on, at least not in a big way.

There are about 60 million grandparents in the United States, Hallmark says. Yet only 4 million - or fewer than 7 percent - will receive cards today.

Local card stores contacted say the day is not a big seller for them, while some of the area's biggest florists say they don't have a single order in for Grandparent's Day.

``We haven't had a whole lot of interest in the holiday,'' says Andrea Johnson, owner of the Cardian Angel in Norfolk, where signs warning customers of today's holiday go unheeded.

``People don't seem to recognize it. Most people have never heard of Grandparent's Day. They concentrate more on Mother's Day and Father's Day.''

At the Hallmark Creations store in Chesapeake, Grandparent's Day cards were relegated to the rack of secondary holidays, where they shared space with Sweetest Day and Boss Day cards.

Assistant manager Debbie Fox said the store didn't have many Grandparent's Day cards in, but those they did get sold out quickly.

A random survery of customers at local card stores found that most were unaware of Grandparent's Day. They said they celebrate their grandparents on Mother's Day and Father's Day and that a special day for grandparents is unnecessary.

``I don't ususally do anything for Grandparent's Day,'' said Letha Zackowski of Chesapeake as she entered Hallmark Creations. She said that Mother's and Father's days are traditional and therefore celebrated more than the newfangled Grandparent's Day.

Some went so far as to accuse Hallmark of creating the holiday to boost revenue.

``It ain't very big,'' said the owner of a local Hallmark store who requested anonymity. ``It's an invention of Hallmark to sell more cards, and it just hasn't caught on.''

Allison Novela, a ``holiday expert'' with Hallmark, adamantly denies such charges, insisting that the company never has and never will wantonly create holidays.

Novela also refuted the notion that Grandparent's Day hasn't caught on with the public. She noted that Hallmark makes cards for only 20 holidays, and the fact that Grandparent's Day is one of them means that it is legit.

``Grandparent's Day has caught on in the sense of sending cards,'' she said. Card-giving ``is a reflection of the closeness of the person, and more people spend more time with their mothers and fathers than with their grandparents. As the nature and structure of families change and grandparents get more involved, (the holiday) will get more popular.'' ILLUSTRATION: Hallmark photo

About 4 million Grandparent's Day cards will be given this year.

That makes the holiday the 13th-largest card-sending occasion in the

country.

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