Each month we will give you a list of special happenings in the UK, USA, and other English-Speaking countries, some serious, others not so much!
1: Cyber Monday
It was created by retailers to encourage people to shop online and has become the digital cousin to Black Friday—both events allegedly offering exceptional discounts for shoppers and becoming as much a part of the holiday celebrations as Christmas lights, caroling, and mistletoe. Online buyers believe they are being offered low prices on such items as TVs, laptops, smart home devices, appliances, and beauty products, when, in reality, retailers have just added a new way to separate shoppers—especially impulsive ones—from their hard-earned money with the stratagem of FOMO (“Fear of Missing Out”). Researchers say that in reality only 2% of products are cheaper than at other times of the year, as retailers artificially inflate prices beforehand to appear to offer bigger discounts on these “sales” days!
© European Union, 2025, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
2: Giving Tuesday
It is observed on the Tuesday after American Thanksgiving. The day is to remind us to stop and think about those people less fortunate and raise awareness about the importance of charity and helping people in need. Quite unsurprisingly, it’s never gained any popularity.
2: National Mutt Day
It is observed on this date annually. It celebrates mixed breed dogs, their unique looks and personalities, and reminds people that these dogs also need loving homes and affection. Around 80% of dogs in the US in shelters are mixed breed and are often overlooked because of people’s desire for pure-bred and designer dogs, which often puts these mixed breed dogs in danger of being euthanized. It should be noted that many if not most pure-bred dogs come from puppy mills and often irresponsible dog breeders, who charge outrageous prices. Who could resist these lovely little rascals below?
3: Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting
The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony first began in 1933 and is a holiday tradition for New Yorkers and citizens across the United States. Located just outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza, a 75-foot tree is usually put up sometime during November, and on the Wednesday after Thanksgiving it is lit up for the first time. Note: the plaza was named after John D. Rockefeller, a ruthless, miserable, greedy, draft-dodging tycoon, who crushed his competitors by any means and created a vicious monopoly in Standard Oil. Merry Christmas to all New Yorkers and Johnny D!
6: Candle Day
Candle Day—not to be confused with “World Candle Day”—sprung from the marketing geniuses at “Bath & Body Works,” on which day the company provides an amazing discount on their famous 3-wick candles (see below—hard to resist!)…while supplies last. Regrettably, for true candle lovers, there is a limit of 15 candles per person. (Although, for loyalty customers, early online access will be available at 6:00am EST!) Last year, to kickoff this highly anticipated event, two days prior, the company introduced their first “Candle Fest,” which included CEO Gina Boswell ringing the opening bell at the NY Stock Exchange, followed by three Olympic medalists leading a 4-mile run through downtown NY, arriving at a four-meter tall, 3-wick LED candle, which was “lit” by a 3.5 meter long match. The party that followed was hosted by DJ Kyle Cooke. CCO Maurice Cooper gushed, “Millions of our customers celebrate Candle Day by now making it a part of their annual holiday tradition.”
“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” – H.L. Mencken
Upon further review, H.L.’s maxim may be out of date in today’s world: New CEO Daniel Heaf announced “Bath & Body Works’ shares have plunged more than 45% this year due to declining sales.” Has the American public wised up? Is it just too broke? Or does B&BW just sell crap?
Reinhard Müller, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
8: Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day
It is perhaps the most bizarre of all holidays to be found. Participants dress up as a character from the past or future and pretend to be time travelers, staying in character around other people by acting confused, excited, or afraid of modern technology. Participants usually choose one of three options: a traveler from a utopian or cliché future, a dystopian future, or the past. Suggestions on how to “participate”:
- Dress in a spacesuit, in armor, or in Victorian-era clothing.
- Act confused by cars, cell phones, televisions, airplanes, and automatic doors.
- Start conversations with televisions. Spend fifteen minutes watching how an automatic door works. Show great excitement & confusion at basic technology.
- Ask people what year it is, and after they answer, say, “Then it’s not too late!” and walk away.
- Hand out small items along with a piece of paper with a phone number on it. Then say, “In thirty years dial this number. You’ll know what to do after that.”
Bryan Ledgard, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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14: National Monkey Day
It commemorates monkeys and “all things simian,” including other non-human primates such as apes, tarsiers, and lemurs. On this day, people around the world join the fun and use Monkey Day to raise awareness about primate welfare and conservation. Fun Facts about Monkeys:
- Monkeys are smart, but apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutangs, & gibbons) are smarter, with more developed brains, and they also live longer.
- Gorillas are up to10 times stronger than humans, eat 30kg of plants daily, learn to recognize faces, have excellent memories, and share 98% of DNA with humans.
- Pygmy Marmosets living in the Amazon are the smallest monkeys in the world, at about 5 inches tall and weighing 4 ounces—about the weight of an apple.
- Mandrills living in central West Africa are the largest monkeys: weighing anywhere from 55 to 119 pounds.
- The Howler monkeys’ roar can be heard from a distance of 5 kilometers away.
- The fastest primate on Earth is the patas monkey (see below), which can reach speeds of 34 mph; compare that with Usain Bolt, who was clocked at 27.3 mph!
Sanjay Acharya, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
16: National Twin Day
It was proclaimed “to celebrate all things twins,” and is a day that “celebrates all the siblings who enjoy a unique connection because of their common birth event.” About two out of three twins are fraternal and the other third are identical. Fraternal twins develop when two eggs are released from a woman’s ovaries and are fertilized by two sperm. The two fertilized eggs produce two children who are genetically unique. The appearance of the twins may be quite similar or may be different. Identical twins develop when one fertilized egg splits or divides in two within a few days of fertilization. Two babies with the same genetic information develop. They look almost identical, but there may be some differences in appearance due to different experiences in the womb and after birth. Unlike fraternal twins, identical twins are always the same sex. Celebrities who have a twin sibling: Scarlett Johanssen, Gisele Bündchen, Aston Kutchner, Rami Malek, Kiefer Sutherland, Van Diesel, Alanis Morissette. Famous mothers of twin children: Beyoncé, Hilary Swank, Mariah Carey, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Sarah Jessica Parker, Celine Dion, Jane Seymour, Geena Davis, Angela Bassett, Anna Kournikova, & Madonna.
Carol M. Highsmith, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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21: Winter Solstice
It occurs around December 21 or 22 in the Northern Hemisphere. It is a significant observance for some people around the world. Festivals are held in Toronto; Cusco, Peru; Riga, Latvia, and people visit ancient solstice sites at Stonehenge and the Karnak Temple in Egypt. The ancient Romans held a 7-day festival called Saturnalia around this date, in which animals were sacrificed, public banquets were held, gift giving was the norm, along with continual partying, overeating, and drunkenness. It was also characterized by “role reversal,” in which slaves were served meals by their masters, togas were put away in favor of more informal clothing, gambling and dice-playing were allowed, and slaves could even criticize their masters—to a point, as both knew the holiday lasted but a week. The poet Catullus called it, “the best of days.”
Themadchopper, Antoine-François Callet, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
23: Festivus
It is a quirky, no-frills (see meal below) secular holiday created by the famous American sitcom “Seinfield” as a counterweight the pressures and commercialism that overwhelms much of today’s holiday season. It was introduced in the 1997 episode titled “The Strike” (Season 9, Episode 10). In the last 5 years, the celebration has gained traction among various parts of the public and is now celebrated by those who believe Christmas has become too commercial, or who do not wish to celebrate Christmas because of their faith/beliefs. That said, it is probably only a matter of time until we see Festivus greeting cards and Festivus trees and decorations, then stealth Festivus gift giving and seemingly insignificant Festivus online sales, until it blows up into another day of excessive gift giving and celebration, serving as a warmup among friends for Christmas Day, especially for those traveling to see family over the holidays. You’ve been warned!
4marknelson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
26: Boxing Day
It has a long and varied history, dating back at least 350 years when it was mentioned in the diary of Samuel Pepys. In 1871, the UK parliament made it an official Bank Holiday, although minority opposition feared it “would encourage laziness or drunkenness among the working classes.” Boxing Day is a public holiday in the UK and Australia; however, not so in the US and parts of Canada. In the past, it was tradition for the rich to give a box of gifts to their servants, as well as money and leftovers from Christmas dinner and bottles of drink. In more recent years, it has, of course, become a huge shopping day, but sales numbers have been tempered by the arrival of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Other Boxing Day traditions new and old include (now modified) fox hunts; icy plunges into the English Channel; Ireland’s Wren Day; Premier League games; horseraces in Surrey; cricket matches and yacht races in Australia; Newfoundland “mummers” perform plays door-to-door; turkey curry made from leftovers; and finally, former British colonies, taking the name literally, arrange pugilistic matches.
Tiverton : Boxing Day 2019 by Lewis Clarke, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
29: Wounded Knee Day of Reflection
It honors the memory of 200-300 mostly unarmed Lakota Sioux massacred in 1890 by 500 troops of the U.S. 7th Cavalry near Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. On that snowy December morning, hundreds of mounted U.S. troops surrounded a Lakota camp and opened fire, indiscriminately killing Indigenous men, women, and children in a violent massacre. Sensationalist newspapers across the country had been stoking fears in the American public about an uprising by Indigenous peoples who had embraced a religion called Ghost Dance, which some tribes believed would return them to a pre-European state of freedom. 135 years later things haven’t changed much, as a compliant press advocates for war and covers up genocide, which others are only too eager to commit. We’ll end the month and year on that note, hoping for better things in the coming year—as we always do. Happy New Year!
Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
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