Welcome to Worldwide Weird Holidays, where you’ll find a new reason to celebrate every day of the year.
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. […]
Columbus Day
Columbus Day might not seem to qualify as a weird holiday, but why not take a closer look? Why do we celebrate the second Monday in October every year? How did this become a federal holiday in 1968? A Congressional Research Service report entitled Federal Holidays: Evolution and Application explains: By commemorating Christopher Columbus’s remarkable voyage, the […]
International Skeptics Day
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, still exists. Philip K. Dick I’m not sure how he’d feel about International Skeptics Day since there’s no evidence that it’s an official holiday anywhere. Considering the number of skeptical organizations worldwide, perhaps it should be. The sticklers among us might point out that Skeptics […]
Kraken Myths and Legends Day
Technically, there are five International Cephalopod Awareness Days (ICAD) in the annual celebration of the most intelligent invertebrates in the world. The first Cephalopod Awareness Day was established in 2007 by members of The Octopus News Magazine Online forum (TONMO) to bring attention to the diversity, conservation, and biology of the world’s cephalopods. Octopi have […]
Hug A Drummer Day
Today is Hug a Drummer Day. Some in the U.S. call it National Hug a Drummer Day, but it’s been celebrated internationally for many years. Though it appears the music industry invented this holiday, that shouldn’t make us cynical. After all, behind every great group, quite literally, is a great drummer. Without a talented percussionist to […]