April first is most commonly known as April Fools day, where friends and families pull practical jokes on each other to celebrate the dawning spring, but the inaugural day of April is dedicated to something else as well: the penny.
National One Cent Day is celebrated annually on the first of April, and is intended to commemorate the history of the coin. This holiday, and many like it, exist on every day of the calendar year to commemorate everything from blueberry cheesecake to middle children.
These holidays have become so popular that there are often several acknowledged every day. For example, while both National DIY Day and National Ferret Day are celebrated on April second, the SAAM Day of Action is recognized on the first Tuesday of April, also falling on the second this year.
While some of these holidays do have notable origins, such as National Ice Cream Day, established by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, many others exist for seemingly no reason in particular.
Married couple Thomas and Ruth Roy of Pennsylvania claim to have created over 80 holidays just for the fun of it. “You are not going to get a day off of work for Bathtub Party Day or any of the dozens of other holidays the Roys have created — they’re mostly just for fun,” The Marketplace reported about the couple.
The creation of obscure holidays can be a lucrative venture. Many brands, for example, pay to use holidays in their marketing campaigns. Others have created successful websites compiling nuanced holidays to great success.
Marlo Anderson founded the National Day Calendar in 2013, and has exploded into a thriving business with several employees, mobile app, and podcast. Additionally, the site receives 30,000 new holiday applications per year.
As uplifting as this trend may appear externally, many people, including senior Samantha Kruse, find these unofficial holidays to be vapid and annoying. “I think obscure holidays are really stupid because they don’t actually mean anything and they sometimes can be celebrating negative things,” she said.
“As an individual born on November 9, which is national orphan day, I feel like that is manifesting a really bad future for me,” Kruse joked.
Others find these holidays to be just as uplifting as they were intended to be. Senior Claire Onions finds them to be a nice excuse to do something fun. “I can justify eating a cupcake on national cupcake day easily, but it’s more difficult to validate my cupcake eating if it’s just a normal day,” Onions explained.
Regardless of whether a particular day’s celebrations are uplifting or annoying, daily national holidays serve as reminders that everyday is worth celebrating.
