Minor Holidays in June and How to Celebrate Them, Part One
Did you know June 4th is International Corgi Day? Or that June 8th is Name Your Poison Day? This guide to the obscure holidays of early June tells you everything you need to know, including proper attire and the correct way to greet people.
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June is the sixth month of the year and was part of the original 10-month Roman calendar that was allegedly created by Romulus. Romulus, of course, was famous for being the first king of Rome and a voracious enjoyer of wolf milk. The month itself was named after the Diablo Cody film Juno.
Like most months, June is known for having a multitude of monumental merriment days. On June 19th is Juneteenth, a celebration of the true end to formal enslavement in the United States, merely two full years after it was declared by tall hat aficionado Abraham “Tall Hat” Lincoln. There’s also Father’s Day, which occurs on the third Sunday of the month and was named after Ezekiel Fathers, a single and childless man who made and sold ties and loved pancakes and orange juice in bed.
The entirety of June is recognized as Pride Month, a celebration of LGBTQ culture. This tradition was made official in the late ‘90s by President Bill “Normal Hat” Clinton as a way to make people forget he was responsible for the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. During Pride Month, it is traditional to hold parades, buy rainbow things, and sigh deeply while ignoring anyone who says “Yeah, well, when’s Straight Month?”
But what gets lost in the shuffle of handmade cards and multicolored bathrobes are a number of minor holidays. Thanks to the website nationaltoday.com, we can stay informed of all the celebrations and observations that have fallen between the metaphorical cracks. The following list provides ways to celebrate obscure holidays every day in June, including how to dress on that day and how to greet others. With that in mind, it is recommended that you print this out and stick it to the inside of all your exterior doors as a reminder.
June 1st - National Heimlich Maneuver Day
The official holiday celebrating the grabbing and squeezing tactics of Dr. Henry Heimlich, who originally developed his famous anti-choking method as a new way to hug friends from behind. Dr. Heimlich was at one of the ‘70s’ famous Olive Parties and, fully unaware that his friend was choking on a throatful of olives, gave him a big thrusting hug from behind, dislodging the food. Since that day, over 100,000 lives have been saved by the Heimlich Maneuver (originally called the Backsies Bearhug) and olives have been officially banned in every country.
Celebration attire: Two mannequin arms around your waist
Proper greeting on this day: “Hope I don’t have to squeeze you today!”
June 2nd - National Rocky Road Day
Rocky Road is a flavor of ice cream that is typically made from a chocolate base mixed with nuts, marshmallows, gravel, and more chocolate. Since its invention in 1929, Rocky Road has been popular both in its standard arrangement and in other configurations with ingredients like crushed-up cookies, gummy bears, and olives (until 1974 when the ban went into effect).
Celebration attire: Waffle-cone-textured pants, chocolate shirt, pocket gravel
Proper greeting on this day: “May your road be rocky.”
June 3rd - National Egg Day
Have you heard of eggs? You may be surprised to learn that this rare delicacy has its own holiday despite its overall obscurity. The American Egg Board was formed by Congress in 1976, the year eggs were discovered, as a way to promote eggs as an olive replacement in the genre of round foods. One of the Egg Board’s most important missions is to remind people that the food part of the egg is on the inside and that eggs should not be bitten into like hard, gushing apples.
Celebration attire: White shirt, yellow pants or skirt, egg in shirt pocket (no shell)
Proper greeting on this day: “Good yolk to you, sir/madam/other!”
June 4th - International Corgi Day
Like many food-related holidays, International Corgi Day is dedicated to celebrating the sweet, gamey red meat of the short-statured royal dog of England. Corgis are known for providing plentiful, dense cuts that can be used as a brisket, steaks, or many other forms of preparation. Fried eggs with baked beans, grilled tomatoes, and corgi bacon, for instance, is what’s known as a “full English breakfast.” The drumsticks are often given to children to enjoy because of their petite size.
Celebration attire: Bib with a smiling cartoon corgi face on it
Proper greeting on this day: “Corgis! Yum!”
June 5th - Hot Air Balloon Day
A somber holiday, Hot Air Balloon Day is set aside to remember those lost in horrible hot air balloon tragedies. Every June 5th sees hundreds of all-black hot air balloons going into the air around the world, memorializing those who didn’t survive their basket-and-fire journeys. Usually only one or two of those become part of the next year’s memorial.
Celebration attire: Black armband with attached free-floating black helium balloon
Proper greeting on this day: “Ups and downs, my friend. Ups and downs.”
June 6th - National Black Bear Day
Get ready for some furry affection, because National Black Bear Day is the official day of those lovable, huggable rapscallions of the woods! After a long period in which black bear populations were dwindling, efforts have been made to bring those numbers back up, including protected reserves, awareness campaigns, and irresponsible hookups through apps. To commemorate this, June 6th is dedicated to finding, chasing, and hugging every black bear in the vicinity! Bonus points for giving a big ol’ squish to a baby bear in front of its mama.
Celebration attire: Pockets full of jerky, headdress made of beef
Proper greeting on this day: “Hey there, little guy!”
June 7th - National VCR Day
Gather ‘round, children, and let me tell you the tale of the VCR. Imagine that instead of going on your phone or tablet or the screen on your fridge to pull up a movie, TV show, or obnoxious YouTube video, you had a bulky machine attached to your television with thick cables. And you would shove book-shaped cassettes into this machine in order to watch a movie you rented or your cousin’s wedding that was captured on another bulky machine called a “camcorder.” A VCR (which stands for Vivacious Contraption for Rewatching) was the original streaming service where you could watch whatever you wanted so long as it was on the cassette you’d purchased or recorded off of HBO in the middle of the night. Fun fact: if you rented a video and forgot to rewind it before returning it, you’d get a $500 fee put on your account and a nasty look from the storekeeper.
Celebration attire: Blue and yellow, faint aroma of popcorn
Proper greeting on this day: “Be kind! Rewind!”
June 8th - Name Your Poison Day
This is the day to dust off your poison shelf, pull all of the bottles with their skull-shaped glass stoppers or green and mysterious corks onto your kitchen counter, and go about giving names to all those you’ve acquired since the previous year’s celebration. While poisonry is a serious business (deadly serious, am I right?), the naming of poisons can be fun and whimsical. Most of the names provided to poisons include some sort of pun like “Arsenicholas” or “Ricinicolas” or “Strychninicholas.” Others’ names could come from celebrities (like Nicolas Cage) or saints (Nicholas, for instance). The important thing is to have a good time and remember to wash your hands after you’ve put everything back.
Celebration attire: Mysterious cloak, one of those rings with a secret compartment in it but filled with glitter instead of deadly nightshade or whatever (fun!)
Proper greeting on this day: “Why don’t you take a sip before I do?”
June 9th - Donald Duck Day
People around the world use this day to condemn the irascible, terrible, pantsless cartoon character Donald “Sailor Hat” Duck. From his stupid shirt to his indecipherable, hateful way of speaking, this anthropomorphized anatidae monster is properly pilloried in events across the globe that regularly include effigy burning.
Celebration attire: Shirt that says “I HATE DONALD DUCK”
Proper greeting on this day: “I hate Donald Duck!”
June 10th - National Ballpoint Pen Day
On June 10th, 1943, two Hungarian brothers whose names are virtually impossible to spell filed the patent for the first ballpoint pen. Every year we celebrate this achievement by visiting local landfills where we can find just some of the over 1.6 billion disposable ballpoint pens that are thrown away every year in the U.S.! Since they generally can’t be recycled, celebrants laugh and shrug and leave them there. Thanks, Hungary!
Bonus Holiday: Because everyone is at the landfill anyway, June 10th is also known as "Remember That Time Punky Brewster’s Friend Got Trapped In A Refrigerator?" Day and children are encouraged to climb into any old appliances they can find while they’re there.
Celebration attire: Long dress made of dried-up ballpoint pens
Proper greeting on this day: “See you at the landfill!”
June 11th - National Corn on the Cob Day
You may think they are, but the cornfields ain’t safe. There’s something in ‘em. Somethin’ in the corn. Somethin’ that smells of evil and deceit and longs for our sufferin’. Farmer Tilbury went into the field just yesterday and whatever came back out ain’t him, just somethin’ shaped like him that’s sayin’ the most unholy things. Stay outta the fields. There’s somethin’ in the corn.
Celebration attire: Crosses, holy water, fire
Proper greeting on this day: “Stay outta the cornfield!”
June 12th - National Jerky Day
Jerky is a product made by taking various meats, leaving them somewhere covered in salt, and letting them dry out until they’re much tougher and harder to eat than they were before. Jerky is a perfect road trip snack because not only is it handheld, it takes one to two hours to chew through each painful meat shard, filling the travel time and sparing passengers your rendition of “Despacito.” Originally only a beef product, many varieties of jerky are now commercially available, including ostrich, fish, and corgi.
Celebration attire: Jerky grease around the mouth, ground-down molars
Proper greeting on this day: “Hng n, chwng jky” while pointing at face
June 13th - National Kitchen Klutzes of America Day
Primarily celebrated in emergency rooms, June 13th is dedicated to every forearm burn, broken dish shard in a foot, and lopped-off finger America has to offer. No small number of Kitchen Klutzes will save up their kitchen klutziness throughout the year and let it all loose on this day in a Buster Keaton-esque display of painful and disgusting physical comedy that the whole ER staff can have a chuckle over. This was, in fact, the subject of a Season 38 episode of the television show ER, which was directed by Mel Brooks. In most cases, celebrants are mostly recovered in time for National Workshop in the Garage Klutzes of America Day in August!
Celebration attire: Blood-stained apron
Proper greeting on this day: “Hi, yeah, it’s in this cooler with some ice.”
June 14th - International Bath Day
Take a bath, you filthy animal. If not every day, at least once a year. You’re hurting other people.
Celebration attire: Bubbles
Proper greeting on this day: “Take a bath, you filthy animal!”
June 15th - Sneak a Kiss Day
Originating in the 1930s with, well, problematic intentions, people (generally men) would plant a kiss on another person (generally women) without their consent and would henceforth become married to them. In the 1990s, the new goal of the day became competition and flipped to people kissing as many non-human living things as they could by day’s end. The “living things” designation was included because people couldn’t stop smooching their Beanie Babies. At the end of the day, the person who doled out the most kisses was henceforth married to their favorite of the kissed things.
Celebration attire: Chapstick
Proper greeting on this day: “Heeere, kitty kitty!”
And here we pause at the halfway point of the month. In the next column we will explore the back half of the month, which includes even more incredible obscure holidays and how to celebrate them. Remember that enjoying holidays responsibly is every human’s duty, even the minor ones, and it’s no one’s fault but your own if those celebrations go terribly, terribly wrong. Have fun!
