If you love to celebrate holidays, your fellow humans and their accomplishments, you’ll find no shortage of interesting holidays for literally every day of the year. Some are more widely recognized than others and even more are basically some sort of advertisement for a company or product. A holiday should give you a reason to celebrate, and something joyful to think about. Here are five fun, fascinating holidays you might not have already known existed, and might want to start celebrating.
Hot Mulled Cider Day – September 30
There aren’t enough holidays out there helping us celebrate hot drinks. Hot Mulled Cider Day lets us ring in the coming of the fall with a nice batch of hot mulled cider with friends and family. You can add alcohol if you’re serving it to an adult crowed who likes to drink, too. Usually, you’ll mull cider with brown sugar and spices like nutmeg, mace, cloves and cinnamon. This is a great holiday to follow up any celebrations of the Fall Equinox, a great time for reflection as the days grow shorter.
Umbrella Day – February 10
While umbrellas have been around too long to know when they were invented, or by whom, Umbrella Day is a day to celebrate simple, practical inventions that make our lives easier, and which we’d normally take for granted. While the umbrella’s inventor may be lost to history, there is a possibly apocryphal tale that an Englishman named Jonas Hanway was the first person to popularize the regular carrying of an umbrella. Once it became an accessory, it became ubiquitous, especially in England, where rain is a way of life.
Bloomsday – June 16
James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses, takes place on a single day – June 16, 1904. Every year, fans of Joyce and the novel celebrate Bloomsday (named for the book’s protagonist, Leopold Bloom) by participating in book readings and reenactments of events in the book. Since the book takes place in Dublin, the daily planned activities around the book are impossible to miss and easy to enjoy.
Barbershop Quartet Day – April 11
On April 11 every year, lovers of harmonious barbershop quartet music celebrate the founding of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America, which happened in 1938. The tradition of barbershop has a muddled history, but is a mix of African American and white musical traditions, sung in harmony. If you live in a place with a barbershop quartet, they’ll surely be putting on a show that day.
Alexander Graham Bell Day – March 7
Alexander Graham Bell received his patent for the telephone on March 7, 1876, so this holiday celebrates the beginning of the electronic and information ages. Like any holiday, you can celebrate however you like, though if you’ve got a museum of telecommunications nearby, that is a fun way to learn more about Bell, his invention, and where we’ve come since then. Also, if you dress up like him, you might start a trend.