October is more than just about Halloween. It's a month for celebration and awareness, filled with celebratory weeks and special single days.
A basic Google search will reveal several websites, like HolidayInsights.com, which show the different special days, and sometimes a brief explanation of what each of them are. These are a few of the special events I plan on celebrating in October, courtesy of HolidayInsights.com.
For example, October is National Diabetes Month, a campaign created to help bring awareness to the problems of diabetes. That's good because it's also Cookie Month, Seafood Month, and National Pizza Month.
Further contributing to our poor health is National Homemade Cookie Day on the 1st, National Frappe Day on the 4th, and National Angel Food Cake Day on the 10th. It's also National Dessert Day on the 14th, and Brandied Fruit Day on the 20th. And let's not forget National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day on the 21st, World Pasta Day on the 25th, and National Candy Corn Day on the 30th. Plus we have a national holiday encouraging our children to become beggars and mendicants (a fancy word for beggar), going door to door and asking for candy.
It's also National Vegetarian Month, which I'm sure my vegetarian friends would say that if you had followed their incessant nagging — I mean, thoughtful advice — you wouldn't need National Diabetes Month.
But they'll be over the moon on National Kale Day, which falls on the 3rd. This is the day when meat eaters everywhere are urged to take all the kale they have in the house and shove it in the garbage disposal before burning the house down.
We owe the vegetarians a little sympathy however, because they have to share their special month with not only Eat Country Ham Month, but both National Gumbo Day and World Egg Day on the 12th and National Bologna Day on the 24th.
While we're on the subject of food, it's Moldy Cheese Day on the 9th, although I can't be sure if this is when we celebrate blue cheeses like Gorgonzola, Roquefort, and Stilton, or if you just need to clean the forgotten science experiments out of your refrigerator.
Also, it's Old Farmer's Day on the 12th, although I don't know if we're supposed to eat them. Google wasn't very clear on the matter.
The second week of October is Pet Peeve Week, where you get to celebrate and grouse about those things that bother you. Like people who drive slow in the left lane. Parents who take their children to rated R movies because there's a superhero in it. And people who pluralize words with an apostrophe. (Seriously, it's not DVD's!)
I'm going to cap off Pet Peeve Week on October 12th, when it's Moment of Frustration Day. That's the day I'm going to open my window, stick my head out, and yell, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore"
Speaking of Moment of Frustration Day, four days later is Bosses Day. But I repeat myself.
October 17th is Wear Something Gaudy Day, although I haven't celebrated that particular day for over 20 years. Back before I owned my own business and decided that it was perfectly acceptable to wear t-shirts to work, I was forced by The Man to wear ties. However, said Man never specified the kinds of ties I had to wear, so I wore the brightest, gaudiest, most obnoxious ties I could find, and I had nearly 50 of them of varying colors, designs, and brightness. Some of them were so obnoxious, you could measure them in footcandles.
But then my mother-in-law saved me from this death by slow hanging during one move, when she accidentally threw them all away. Of course, I forgave her, and just in time too, because the 28th is National Mother-in-Law Day.
Followed on the 29th by National Frankenstein Day.
I don't mean anything by that, of course. I'm just celebrating Mischief Night a little early. It falls on October 30.
Since this is the month of Halloween, would you be surprised to hear the 31st is Carve a Pumpkin Day? I mean, that's when I usually do it, considering I'm always procrastinating these kinds of things. (I missed Fight Procrastination Day on September 6th if that tells you anything.) If left to my own devices, we'd decorate our Christmas tree on the 24th, but my wife is really good about that sort of thing, so it gets done about three weeks earlier.
Speaking of national holidays, it's Columbus Day on the 8th, but he's such a genocidal jackass that many people have taken to celebrating Leif Erikson day on the 9th instead. I think he's the better explorer to celebrate.
For one thing, Leif Erikson was not a murdering jackwagon, and for another, Columbus never-not-once actually landed in North America at all. He landed on the island of Hispaniola, which is now modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Plus he did it 490 years after Leif Erikson landed on North America.
Finally, it's supposedly International Skeptics Day on the 13th, but some of you will have a hard time believing that. You will no doubt follow it up with Well, Actually Day and National What About Week, at least as evidenced by some of the people in my Facebook feed.
Let me encourage those people to instead spend the 19th observing Evaluate Your Life Day.
I'm only kidding of course. October is Sarcasm Month, after all.
Photo credit: PXHere.com (Creative Commons 0)
The 3rd edition of Branding Yourself is now available on Amazon.com and in your local Barnes & Noble bookstore.
A basic Google search will reveal several websites, like HolidayInsights.com, which show the different special days, and sometimes a brief explanation of what each of them are. These are a few of the special events I plan on celebrating in October, courtesy of HolidayInsights.com.
For example, October is National Diabetes Month, a campaign created to help bring awareness to the problems of diabetes. That's good because it's also Cookie Month, Seafood Month, and National Pizza Month.
Further contributing to our poor health is National Homemade Cookie Day on the 1st, National Frappe Day on the 4th, and National Angel Food Cake Day on the 10th. It's also National Dessert Day on the 14th, and Brandied Fruit Day on the 20th. And let's not forget National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day on the 21st, World Pasta Day on the 25th, and National Candy Corn Day on the 30th. Plus we have a national holiday encouraging our children to become beggars and mendicants (a fancy word for beggar), going door to door and asking for candy.
It's also National Vegetarian Month, which I'm sure my vegetarian friends would say that if you had followed their incessant nagging — I mean, thoughtful advice — you wouldn't need National Diabetes Month.
But they'll be over the moon on National Kale Day, which falls on the 3rd. This is the day when meat eaters everywhere are urged to take all the kale they have in the house and shove it in the garbage disposal before burning the house down.
While we're on the subject of food, it's Moldy Cheese Day on the 9th, although I can't be sure if this is when we celebrate blue cheeses like Gorgonzola, Roquefort, and Stilton, or if you just need to clean the forgotten science experiments out of your refrigerator.
Also, it's Old Farmer's Day on the 12th, although I don't know if we're supposed to eat them. Google wasn't very clear on the matter.
The second week of October is Pet Peeve Week, where you get to celebrate and grouse about those things that bother you. Like people who drive slow in the left lane. Parents who take their children to rated R movies because there's a superhero in it. And people who pluralize words with an apostrophe. (Seriously, it's not DVD's!)
I'm going to cap off Pet Peeve Week on October 12th, when it's Moment of Frustration Day. That's the day I'm going to open my window, stick my head out, and yell, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore"
Speaking of Moment of Frustration Day, four days later is Bosses Day. But I repeat myself.
October 17th is Wear Something Gaudy Day, although I haven't celebrated that particular day for over 20 years. Back before I owned my own business and decided that it was perfectly acceptable to wear t-shirts to work, I was forced by The Man to wear ties. However, said Man never specified the kinds of ties I had to wear, so I wore the brightest, gaudiest, most obnoxious ties I could find, and I had nearly 50 of them of varying colors, designs, and brightness. Some of them were so obnoxious, you could measure them in footcandles.
But then my mother-in-law saved me from this death by slow hanging during one move, when she accidentally threw them all away. Of course, I forgave her, and just in time too, because the 28th is National Mother-in-Law Day.
Followed on the 29th by National Frankenstein Day.
I don't mean anything by that, of course. I'm just celebrating Mischief Night a little early. It falls on October 30.
Since this is the month of Halloween, would you be surprised to hear the 31st is Carve a Pumpkin Day? I mean, that's when I usually do it, considering I'm always procrastinating these kinds of things. (I missed Fight Procrastination Day on September 6th if that tells you anything.) If left to my own devices, we'd decorate our Christmas tree on the 24th, but my wife is really good about that sort of thing, so it gets done about three weeks earlier.
Speaking of national holidays, it's Columbus Day on the 8th, but he's such a genocidal jackass that many people have taken to celebrating Leif Erikson day on the 9th instead. I think he's the better explorer to celebrate.
For one thing, Leif Erikson was not a murdering jackwagon, and for another, Columbus never-not-once actually landed in North America at all. He landed on the island of Hispaniola, which is now modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Plus he did it 490 years after Leif Erikson landed on North America.
Finally, it's supposedly International Skeptics Day on the 13th, but some of you will have a hard time believing that. You will no doubt follow it up with Well, Actually Day and National What About Week, at least as evidenced by some of the people in my Facebook feed.
Let me encourage those people to instead spend the 19th observing Evaluate Your Life Day.
I'm only kidding of course. October is Sarcasm Month, after all.
Photo credit: PXHere.com (Creative Commons 0)
The 3rd edition of Branding Yourself is now available on Amazon.com and in your local Barnes & Noble bookstore.