fun, strange holidays grouped by month

December 24 is National Eggnog Day

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national eggnog dayToday is National Eggnog Day, celebrated each year on Christmas Eve. The sweetened drink is traditionally made with milk and/or cream, sugar, eggs, and spices, often mixed with spirits such as rum, brandy or some combination of liquors.

Also known as egg milk punch, it has a rich history dating back to “posset,” a hot beverage that mixed milk and eggs with wine or beer. Eggs and milk were a rare commodity among the peasants of medieval England, so it was most often drunk by the wealthy in toasts to health and prosperity.

In the 1700s, eggnog crossed the Atlantic to the Americas, where its use was more widespread due to colonists’ direct access to chickens and cows. England’s high import taxes on brandy, its preferred alcoholic ingredient, made cheap, readily available rum a popular substitute.

If you’d like to try your hand at making eggnog, you can’t go wrong with George Washington’s recipe. The father of our country used four different kinds of alcohol. Parties at Mount Vernon must have been a lot of fun.

He might have had a tipple before penning the directions: he forgot to include the number of eggs needed. Cooks of his era estimated that a dozen eggs would suffice. Here are his instructions:

One quart cream, one quart milk, one dozen tablespoons sugar, one pint brandy, 1/2 pint rye whiskey, 1/2 pint Jamaica rum, 1/4 pint sherry—mix liquor first, then separate yolks and whites of eggs, add sugar to beaten yolks, mix well. Add milk and cream, slowly beating. Beat whites of eggs until stiff and fold slowly into mixture. Let set in cool place for several days. Taste frequently.

If the thought of raw eggs doesn’t thrill you, try this cooked version. Omit the alcohol if you’re the designated driver. Have a happy National Eggnog Day!

December 22 is National Cookie Exchange Day

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Today is National Cookie Exchange Day. Take a break from last-minute decorating, shopping, wrapping, and planning for the coming holiday. Happy? Humbug? Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, it’s difficult to avoid the stress leading up to the biggest holiday of the year.

National Cookie Exchange Day

Sit back and eat a cookie or three. Swap your favorites with friends and family, try one of the following recipes:

Snickerdoodles
Molasses Drops
Classic Sugar Cookies
Soft Christmas Cookies
Pumpkin Cookies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Or visit a bakery and take the whole day off. We’ll never tell! The point of this holiday is to relax and enjoy yourself.

Happy National Cookie Exchange Day!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

Forefathers’ Day

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forefathers' day

Forefathers’ Day commemorates the landing of the Mayflower and the pilgrims’ subsequent founding of Plymouth Colony in North America. The ship arrived on December 11, 1620. So why is the anniversary celebrated on December 21 or December 22?

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII announced his Gregorian calendar would replace the Julian calendar introduced in 46 B.C. by Julius Caesar.  The Roman emperor’s system had miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes.

This concerned the pope because it meant that Easter, traditionally observed on March 21, fell further away from the spring equinox with each passing year. Ten days were subtracted to realign the seasons with the calendar. The beginning of the new year was also moved to January 1 from March 25.

England and the colonies didn’t convert to the new system until September 1752, causing the month’s calendar to look like this:

 cal 9 1752
  September 1752
 S  M Tu  W Th  F  S
       1  2 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Benjamin Franklin wrote of the change, “It is pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on September 2, and not have to get up until September 14.”

When the Old Colony Club of Plymouth inaugurated Forefathers’ Day in 1769, it mistakenly reset the anniversary of the ship’s landing to December 22. (Perhaps it utilized the 11-day difference appropriate to its own century.)

Founders' Day

Members still observe the holiday on December 22, wearing top hats and marching down Plymouth’s main street led by a drummer. After firing a small cannon at the end of the route, they return to their club for breakfast and toasts to the Pilgrims.

Other groups like the General Society of Mayflower Descendants observe the occasion, sometimes called Compact Day, on December 21, as does the Pilgrim Society, a group formed in 1820 that serves a traditional dinner of succotash, stew, corn, turnips, and beans.

No matter how or when you choose to celebrate it, have a happy Forefathers’ Day!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

December 20 is Mudd Day

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Today is Mudd Day. It commemorates the birthday of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was accused of conspiring to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln and hiding his killer, John Wilkes Booth, after the fact.

Mudd Day

Dr. Samuel Mudd

After killing Lincoln on April 14, 1865, Booth fractured his fibula when he jumped from the president’s box seat to the stage of the Ford Theater and fled the scene. He and co-conspirator David Herold rode on horseback to Dr. Mudd’s house, arriving in the middle of the night. Mudd splinted Booth’s leg and let the men rest in a bedroom upstairs. They were at the house for at least twelve hours before leaving in late afternoon to continue their flight.

(The fugitives were cornered two weeks later in a Virginia tobacco shed by Union cavalry. Herold surrendered. Booth refused. Soldiers set the shed on fire and shot Booth as he tried to escape the flames.)

It’s possible Mudd didn’t know about the assassination. He went into town to run errands during the day of April 15th and certainly would have learned the news then. But he failed to report Booth’s visit for another twenty-four hours.

Authorities found Mudd’s hesitation suspicious. His inaction certainly allowed the men more time to escape. Under interrogation, he changed his story several times. He may have done so due to the stress of being questioned. He was arrested on April 26th, coincidentally the same day Booth was killed and Herold taken prisoner.

On June 29, 1865, Mudd was found guilty of conspiring to murder President Lincoln. He was sentenced to life in prison, escaping the death penalty by one vote. Four of the convicted, including Herold, were hanged eight days later.

Mudd was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson and released from prison in 1869. He died of pneumonia on January 10, 1883. Despite ongoing efforts to have his record expunged, Mudd’s conviction has never been overturned. A Facebook page is dedicated to clearing his name and his home has become a museum.

*****

One thing is clear, however. The phrase “your name is mud” has no connection to Dr. Mudd. Use of the word “mud” to label things as worthless or unwholesome dates back as far as the 16th century. Its usage was later applied to people, as documented in a 1703 description of London’s low life, Hell upon Earth:

Mud, a Fool, or thick skull Fellow.

The following citation appeared in an 1823 dictionary of slang terms.

Mud – a stupid twaddling fellow. ‘And his name is mud!’ ejaculated upon the conclusion of a silly oration, or of a leader in the Courier.

Oddly, “mud” was also used as a general intensifier. There are many published examples of “as fat as mud,” “as rich as mud,” “as sick as mud” etc. Eventually, the meanings coalesced into an epithet that insulted a person’s worth and identity, and sometimes carried a threat of violence. “Your name is mud” has been in use ever since.

Happy Mudd Day, we think.

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays