The origins of miscellaneous holidays

While browsing the internet, one may encounter many seemingly meaningless holidays. Not referring to the widely celebrated ones such as Easter or Valentine’s Day, but rather, silly ones such as “National S’mores Day”, or “National Butterscotch Cinnamon Pie Day”. What is the point of these?

Research shows that these holidays are obviously not official, but are slapped onto decorative calendars by various institutions. One of the most significant websites that does this is the National Day Calendar. Marlo Anderson–the founder of the website–has boasted about receiving 20,000 petitions a year, of which only a small number are chosen to appear on the calendar. Many brands allegedly pay to increase their chances of appearing onto the calendar in an attempt to spike sales in their products. Despite this apparent exclusivity, the website still contains thousands of these wacky holidays.

This brings up the argument that the website’s continuation of accepting applications for new holidays will eventually lead to its demise. As more holidays are added to the calendar, more are devalued. There are outliers such as National Avocado Day, which blew up in 2019, but most of these are never even seen.

While this is certainly true, it is also doubtful that Anderson’s intentions when creating the site was to make it so that every day was a celebration of five different holidays. The main purpose of these holidays is to provide brief entertainment and curiosity. It is fun to see a day that is usually perceived as meaningless is actually simultaneously “National Hot Chocolate Day” and “National Backwards Day.”

At the end of the day, these holidays boil down to a fun idea. It gives people the ability to have fun mini holidays for things they enjoy, and as a celebrator of National Ice Cream Day, one can not complain.