Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
Create a Great Funeral Day
“Funerals are the party no one wants to plan.” So says Gail Rubin, a death services planner, radio host, and leader of the Albuquerque chapter of Death Café. She’s been called the Doyenne of Death and liked it so much, she trademarked it. She runs a site called A Good Goodbye – Funeral Planning for Those Who […]
National Cat Day (and International Internet Day)
Today is International Internet National Cat Day because I said so! Hell, yeah, it’s National Cat Day! Sure, it’s International Internet Day, too. On October 29, 1969, a few months after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, the first message was sent across the Internet. The system crashed after the first two letters of the word “login” […]
Sylvia Plath Day
Is it possible to wish someone a Happy Sylvia Plath Day? How can anyone celebrate the birthday of a woman who killed herself? Is this a joke? Is it sponsored by some brand of oven cleaner? We found evidence that this holiday exists: From the Sylvia Plath Forum, created in 1998 by Elaine Connell and […]
Mule Appreciation Day
According to numerous sources on the Internet: President Ronald Reagan signed a bill in 1985, designating October 26th as Mule Appreciation Day. Two hundred years before on this date, a ship docked in Boston, bearing the gift of a donkey from King Charles III of Spain to President George Washington. We went a little crazy researching […]
RIP Visit a Cemetery Day
Visit a Cemetery Day is supposed to take place on the last Sunday of October each year, but the unofficial holiday has vanished without a trace. The inaugural event in 2010 was intended to create an annual ritual of remembrance, according to organizers, mysendoff.com, International Memorialization Supplier Organization (IMSA), Kates-Boylston Publications, and American Cemetery Magazine. By 2012, […]
Stuck in Line with a Conspiracy Theorist Day
Today’s holiday, Stuck in Line with a Conspiracy Theorist Day, commemorates an event taking place this morning in local post offices across the United States. (The post office seems to be the locus of many of these incidents. Coincidence? You decide.) An old man who speaks little English is trying to send a registered letter […]
Wear Something Gaudy Day
While Festivus may be the most famous holiday invented by sitcom writers, there is a lesser-known day called Wear Something Gaudy Day that’s fun and doesn’t require the airing of grievances. Airing from 1977 to 1984, Three’s Company was adapted from a British show called Man About the House. Initially, it was turned down by all […]
Dictionary Day
An immense effect may be produced by small powers wisely and steadily directed. Noah Webster, 1821 Dictionary Day was founded to celebrate the life of Noah Webster, born on October 16, 1758. Why would anyone spend twenty-seven years of his life working in solitude to produce an American dictionary? Webster sought to create a unifying, […]
Global Handwashing Day
Today is Global Handwashing Day. We know, we know: eww! When it comes to that ill-advised hot dog wolfed at a highway rest stop, we are all like Mulder on the X-Files: we want to believe. That counter’s clean, the food freshly prepared by people who treat every day as handwashing day. So this must […]
national lowercase day
While English majors past, present, and future may grind their teeth in frustration, freewheeling texters will love today’s holiday: national lowercase day! This is the day to turn your back on the rules of capitalization if you were ever facing them at all. This fun, unofficial holiday has no clear author or point of origin. […]