fun, strange holidays grouped by month

International Pillow Fight Day

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Today is the ninth annual International Pillow Fight Day, a holiday that encourages us to play like children on a grand scale. The event has gained momentum since its inception in 2008 and is now celebrated in more than 100 countries around the world. It always takes place on the first Saturday of April.

International Pillow Fight Day is part of what’s known as the urban playground movement. The founders explain:

One of our goals is to make these unique happenings in public space become a significant part of popular culture, partially replacing passive, non-social consumption experiences like watching television, and consciously celebrating public spaces in our cities as our ‘urban living rooms.’ The result, we hope, will be a global community of participants in a world where people are constantly organizing and attending these happenings in every major city in the world.

If you’re in the Western hemisphere, you’re in luck. Many pillow fights take place in the afternoon. (In New York City and Toronto, for example, the fights start at 3 pm. Check pillowfightday.com for a fight near you.)

We thought it might whet your appetite to see the festivities that have already taken place today.

international pillow fight day

Amsterdam 2016

international pillow fight day

Athens 2016

international pillow fight day

London 2016

international pillow fight day

Taipei 2016

Check out this theta360 spherical image taken in a London park:

international pillow fight day

international pillow fight day

 

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

March 21 is Twitter Day

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Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

Fill Our Staplers Day

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fill our staplers dayMarch 14, 2016, is Fill Our Staplers Day, a holiday that occurs twice a year on the day after the shift from Standard Time to Daylight Savings and vice versa, better known as “Spring Forward, Fall Back.”

Many people believe Daylight Savings Time was invented by Benjamin Franklin because of his 1784 essay called “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light.” In it, he described being shocked upon accidentally awakening early in the morning to see that the sun was already up.

After painstaking analysis, he concluded that changing the hour, resetting all clocks, rationing candle wax, enforcing a mandatory curfew and firing cannons at sunup would encourage the citizenry, who would otherwise fail to realize they could simply rise earlier, to take full advantage of daylight.  One wonders if Franklin had to endure the utter lack of understanding of satire so commonplace since the invention of the Internet.

What has that got to do with office supplies? Not much, unless you work by lamplight or in a post-apocalyptic hellscape without electricity, which sounds like the saddest Dilbert cartoon ever. A nice bit of Benjamin Franklin trivia may not get you far at a cocktail party, but it could be the secret handshake that gains you entry into the Dull Men’s Club (DMC), originators of the biannual Fill Our Staplers Day.

In 2010, the DMC announced its establishment 0f biannual Fill Your Staplers Days to help spare its members the mild annoyance of discovering they have run out of staples at the last minute before a presentation to their boss, who might have a thing against paperclips. (They know who they are.)

Why has the club designated the day after the time change? “The day clocks change in the spring has been designated as Check Your Batteries Day, ” the DMC website explains. “We could designate Fill Your Staplers Day to be that day as well but, when added to changing clocks and checking on batteries — too much to do all in one day. So we’ll do it the next day.”

That sounds perfectly reasonable to us. Have a happy Fill Our Staplers Day!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays

International Fanny Pack Day

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international fanny pack day

Yates and friends on IFPD in 2011

March 12, 2016, is International Fanny Pack Day. Nick Yates, who founded the holiday in 2007, drew inspiration from an experience he’d had a few years earlier.

Yates had received a fanny pack and fruitcake as gag gifts at a Christmas party in Portland, Oregon. Lured by its practicality and convenience, he strapped on the pack and stuffed the foil-wrapped cake inside when he left.

While walking to the bus stop, he encountered a homeless man who said, “Nice fanny pack, chief.” Yates replied, “Thanks,” unzipped the bag, handed him the food and continued on his way.

As Yates recalls, he was half a block away when the man unwrapped the foil and shouted, “A f***ing fruitcake?”

Although many would consider this just one more harsh (and humorous) critique of fruitcake, Yates made a connection between the fanny pack and helping the hungry. He began to give out food—but no more fruitcake—while wearing the pack.

He continued the tradition after moving to Boise, Idaho, coordinating efforts with friends and local food banks. In 2007, he declared the second Saturday of March to be International Fanny Pack Day. Since then, the holiday has been observed in seven countries.

Dig that fanny pack out of the back of your closet and wear it with pride while you help those in neinternational fanny pack dayed. Or go totally upscale with British designer Tess Van Ghert’s $1,000 python “valet bag.”

Be the first one on your block—or outside the carnival—to wrap a snake around your middle.

But if you wear it in England, be sure to call it a “hip pack,” “bum bag” or anything else. There, “fanny” is slang for a woman’s privates.

If you require more convincing that this is a fine sartorial option, check out this awesome song by Koo Koo Kanga Roo!

Happy International Fanny Pack Day!

Copyright 2016 Worldwide Weird Holidays