Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
March 1 is National Pig Day
Mary Lynn Rave and her sister Ellen Stanley created National Pig Day in 1972 “to accord the pig its rightful, though generally unrecognized, place as one of man’s most intellectual and domesticated animals.” Pigs are intelligent, using various oinks, grunts, and squeals to communicate with each other. They excel in tests requiring the location of objects […]
January 5 is National Whipped Cream Day
Today is National Whipped Cream Day. It commemorates the birth on January 5, 1914, of Reddi-Wip founder Aaron “Bunny” Lapin and honors his contributions to the world of dessert. During the food-rationing years of World War II, Lapin introduced vegetable-oil-based Sta-Whip as a cream substitute. After the war, he used real cream to invent Reddi-Wip. […]
January 4 is National Trivia Day
Today is National Trivia Day. Why? Here’s your first bit of trivia: National Trivia Day was invented by Robert L. Birch, leader of Puns Corps, who also brought us A’phabet Day. It celebrates those of us who possess knowledge of facts that might not matter much at all. Here’s your chance to receive a doctorate […]
January 3 is Festival of Sleep Day
Festival of Sleep Day Do you like sleeping? Of course you do! Today is Festival of Sleep Day, your perfect excuse to lock your door, turn off your devices and take a long, guilt-free nap. We don’t know who invented this holiday, but we’d like to shake his (or her) hand. We assume it was created […]
January 2 is National Buffet Day
Today is National Buffet Day. It’s about time the U.S. recognized its favorite low-impact, dangerous sport: overeating! The essential feature of the various buffet formats is that diners can view the food, immediately select the dishes they wish to consume, and can also usually decide how much food they take. Whether it has a chocolate […]
International Sweater Vestival
Today is the International Sweater Vestival, also known as Sweater Vestival or the Festival of Sweater Vests. Always occurring on the first Friday of December—identified by some as the second Friday after Thanksgiving—it celebrates the sartorial splendor inherent in the collective donning of sweater vests. The first known mention of “Sweater Vestival” occurred in 2008 when Carolyn Johnson interviewed the […]
November 30 is Perpetual Youth Day
Today is Perpetual Youth Day, always celebrated on November 30th in honor of Dick Clark’s birthday. Although he’d been born in 1929, Clark appeared to age very little during the five decades of his career, earning him the nickname of “America’s oldest teenager.” In 1957, Clark hosted a local Philadelphia television show called Bandstand, which […]
Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday was created in 2012 by the U.N. Foundation in partnership with 92Y, and is always observed on the first Tuesday of December. Following on the heels of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, symbols of excessive retail spending, Giving Tuesday encourages us to show generosity to those in need. The campaign’s creators hoped that 50 […]
November 24 is D.B. Cooper Day
On November 24, 1971, a man who identified himself as Dan Cooper boarded a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington. He was wearing a suit, had no discernable accent, drank bourbon and soda and smoked several cigarettes. He also handed a flight attendant an exceedingly polite note informing her he had a […]
Black Friday
Today is called Black Friday because it’s said to be the day that retailers can finally mark their ledgers with black ink instead of red; that is, they begin to turn a profit. Black Friday suffers from mission creep: it starts earlier every year. While you’d think that having a particular day in the name […]