Cookie Cutter Week

Tomorrow, December 1st, is the beginning of Cookie Cutter Week! Hot on the heels of Thanksgiving, this week is the time to start amassing cookie cutters for the baking frenzy that occurs in kitchens nationwide throughout the month of December.

Something about the winter holidays calls for a profusion of warm, delicious cookies, so we might as well embrace our gastronomic urges and get out the baking utensils. Holiday food gifts come in all shapes and sizes, so cookies, with their oh-so-variable outlines, are the perfect fit for any holiday gift list. Baking cookies is also a great way for families to come together in the spirit of the season in a way that doesn't involve high-octane shopping in department stores blasting the inevitable holiday music medleys. So what are we waiting for? Bring on the cookie cutters! I'm getting hungry already!

Make Your Own Head Day

November 28th is Make Your Own Head Day! Sure, you may still be tired from starting your own country, and maybe even a little sluggish from all those Thanksgiving leftovers you've been devouring, but this is no excuse to slack off.

This new head is an excuse to get out your pens, pencils, and other art supplies and let your imagination run wild--it can look as much or as little like your own head as you choose. And yes, you are allowed to keep your original head--presumably, you can switch between the two depending on which best matches your apparel that day, and simply wear a thick scarf around your neck to hide the attachment scar.

If you absolutely must revert to using your old head, of course, you can give the newly-crafted one away as a holiday gift. Since this is a family-friendly blog, I'm not going to crack the obvious dirty jokes here, but it'll sure make for a memorable holiday...

Start Your Own Country Day

Technically, Start Your Own Country Day was yesterday--November 22nd. But who am I to let this obviously crucial date slip by unnoticed? Better late than never when it comes to starting your own country, I say! Just design a custom flag, stake out a plot of real estate slightly larger than your apartment, and go!

Of course starting your own country takes a lot of work. Sure, you're dictator for life, but what about the rest of the government? Are you prepared to write out an entire legal code, or are you going to be lazy and hope that the iron-fist approach solves all your problems? And all those state officials aren't just volunteering...how are you going to pay everyone? The sparkly new currency issued by the Federal Credit Union of Your Country might not pass muster at the local Wal-Mart, after all, and then you have an insurgency on your hands. Maybe your first act as leader of your new country should be to take a long vacation...

Absurdity Day

Today, November 20th, is Absurdity Day. Time to let go of logic and reason for 24 hours and see how much more fun it is to revel in nonsense.

We spend so much time trying to comprehend things that by the end of the day our brains practically need a massage. Why not embrace absurdity for once? Wear a weird hat on your elbow, host a dinner party with food-shaped stress balls on everybody's plate instead of real food (then give them plenty of chocolate as consolation afterward), walk a lobster around on the street. Read your book upside down on the bus home. Stop making sense!

[Or maybe every other day is secretly Absurdity Day, and today is the only time real life isn't absurd? Quick, someone check the calendar!]

World Toilet Day

Tomorrow, November 19th, is World Toilet Day! Sure to become a hit with everyone's inner ten-year-old boy, this holiday actually isn't just about potty humor. This site explains the sewage-related ills plaguing the earth right now that make an awareness holiday like World Toilet Day necessary and offers fundraising links so that you can donate to help stem the--*chuckle*--flow of the global sanitation crisis.

Fortunately, the World Toilet Organization (yes, it exists) has humor on its side. As part of the, er, "festivities" tomorrow, the nonprofit is urging people across the world to organize their own Big Squats. Don't get squeamish yet--a Big Squat is simply a protest in which a group squats for one minute in a public place, mimicking the unsanitary, open toilet conditions faced by many in the developing world, and hands out flyers or other information to educate passersby on the purpose of this odd display.

Button Day

Today, November 16th, is Button Day. Take this time to honor and recognize the humble button, so simple yet so important to our lives. Where would we be without the red button, not to be pushed under any circumstances?

If you've ever worn a button-down shirt, winter jacket, pair of pants, or any sort of corporate ensemble, you're intimately familiar with buttons. Today, bask in your new-found awareness of these fasteners' importance, for without them, our apparel would be a sorry mess of flimsy snaps and busted zippers. True fanatics can join the National Button Society and obsess over buttons all year round.

If that's not your idea of fun, promotional buttons with your choice of message are a lot more interesting than simple clothing buttons, especially buttons that light up. They deserve a place of honor in today's celebration. While you're at it, why not press all the buttons on the electronic devices in your home? Those buttons need appreciation too. Just don't touch the red one. Seriously. We're warning you.

Sweet Potato Awareness Month

When we think of potatoes, too often we focus only on the white, starchy vegetable that needs a ton of butter, gravy, or frying oil to taste like anything. "Regular" potatoes are--let's face it--pretty boring. November, however, is Sweet Potato Awareness Month!

Sweet potatoes are not to be confused with yams, though many grocery stores make this mistake. Yams have white, starchy insides, while sweet potatoes are orange and, well, sweet inside. And candied yams, the syrupy tubers sitting demurely in cans on our shelves, are actually sweet potatoes. Confused yet? No wonder we need to devote an entire month to sweet potato awareness!

Sweet potatoes are delicious on their own, but even better in dishes like sweet potato pie and sweet potato pancakes. They can also be substituted for their boring, starchy cousins in recipes like sweet potato fries and mashed sweet potatoes for an extra-tasty treat! As if we needed more reasons to love the noble sweet potato, they're extremely nutritious, with twice the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A, 42% of the RDA of vitamin C, four times the RDA of beta carotene, and heaps of fiber. Check out some delicious recipes at Sweet Potato Awareness HQ.

Remember, Fall has been here for a while and Thanksgiving is just around the corner--what better to accompany your turkey dinner than a nice steaming helping of sweet potatoes?

Pursuit of Happiness Week

This week, from November 8th to the 14th, is Pursuit of Happiness Week! The pursuit of happiness is supposedly a fundamental human right, guaranteed by the founders of our government, but we rarely think about it: how exactly does one pursue happiness?

For some, happiness comes from expressing their creative side. Take out a pen and notebook and write, or grab some paints and a canvas if you're more artistic. Music often makes people happy, whether you play an instrument yourself or just go to a show. Some people feel great after exercising or playing their favorite sports. Whatever you do, don't stress out or give up. The idea behind pursuing happiness is to find what you enjoy doing and keep doing it. Experiment! You have a whole week!

And a surprisingly easy route to feeling happy? Smile. Your brain is easily fooled into releasing all sorts of nice joy-producing chemicals, and you may find that happiness is much closer than you think. Now, enjoy the rest of the week!

Area Code Day

Tomorrow, November 10th, is Area Code Day. Time to celebrate those three noble characters at the beginning of your phone number!

Area codes don't mean as much as they used to, with service overlays and the proliferation of cell phones muddling geographic areas to the point of confusion. Look at New York City, even as its legendary 212 remains the recipient of rap music shoutouts--there's 646, 718, 917, and even 347 sitting around waiting for their own cultural heroes.

But perhaps the meaning of Area Code Day is to celebrate this constant telecommunications flux. Cell phone service providers can take advantage of Area Code Day to stage their own promotions, perhaps offering custom cell phone accessories personalized with users' area codes as a giveaway if they buy a new service package. Ah, a nice, commercial holiday...what a relief!

Wikipedia has a nauseatingly thorough explanation of area codes, if you really can't get enough...otherwise, you can always lose yourself in old copies of the Yellow Pages.

Pumpkin Chunkin' Days

Still no plans for the weekend? Never fear--November 6, 7, and 8 are Pumpkin Chunkin' Days. Pumpkin Chunkin', in case you're wondering, originated in Delaware as the practice of hurling pumpkins great distances with simple machines. The term now informally refers to any method of destroying Halloween jack-o-lanterns.

A week after Halloween, carved pumpkins look undeniably gross. Fortunately, there are plenty of creative ways to smash the (increasingly squishy) squash even if you don't have the majestic catapults or real estate of "professional" pumpkin chunkers at your fingertips. You can drop your ex-jack-o-lantern out a window and watch the forces of gravity have their way with it. This provides a unique hands-on educational opportunity to learn the laws of physics, and it's more fun than any textbook activity. Another option? Promote car safety: run that pumpkin over with your car or bicycle in your driveway to get out all that road rage before hitting the highway!

Who knew that decaying pumpkins made such awesome stress relievers? You learn something new every day.

Use Your Common Sense Day

Today, November 4th, is Use Your Common Sense Day. Interestingly enough, my common sense tells me that every day should be Use Your Common Sense Day. Maybe I should print my own promotional calendar to include this. Just think--what would happen if everyone used their common sense as often as they used their computers?

Use this special day to recognize the voice of reason in your head and actually do what it's been telling you to do. This could be something mundane, like washing your laundry or doing the dishes, or it could be something fabulous, like signing a publishing contract or auctioning off an unwanted body part.*

*Really, I'm just kidding about that last one.

Cliché Day

Look out, everyone! It's Cliché Day tomorrow. On November 3rd, we celebrate those phrases that are so well-known--dare I say overused--that merely uttering them is like beating a dead horse.

Clichés are so much a part of everyday language that we love to hate them with all our hearts. Secretly, they are music to our ears. It's always been just common knowledge that clichés would be recognized with their own holiday sooner or later. And better late than never!

"Give it a rest! Promote clichés? When pigs fly!" you may scoff. Don't have a cow--we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Remember, Cliché Day is tomorrow. And tomorrow is another day!

(For more of these beloved assaults on the English language, check out ClicheSite. There are enough on there to fill an entire Cliché-a-Day promotional calendar!)