From National pancake day to national skip the straw day, the many states of the U.S have created tons of random holidays for each day of the year, but what does it take to become a national holiday? You would think it would be completely up to the president or congress, but what really takes place is individuals propose ideas for what to celebrate next and congress gives them the thumbs up and it’s established. It can be confusing telling the difference between national and federal holidays but the distinction lies in the government recognition.

There are only 12 federal holidays recognized by the government where workers are off of work and still get paid like Christmas, Memorial day, and New Years. Yet national holidays are the days where jobs are not being closed down for it such as tortilla chip day, world bartender day and clam chowder day.

So let’s talk about how national holidays were first initiated. It began on Thursday, November 26, 1789 when president George Washington issued “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer,” now known as Thanksgiving which as we all know is a holiday almost every family in America celebrates to this day.

Since then more and more holidays have been created for random things like national covered nut day or sword swallowers day. Most of the days we celebrate as a country have started out small and eventually gained more traction, that is why some have been more popular than others like Mardi Gras, Presidents Day, and Mothers Day. These are also some of the days where we have days off of school and work.

Creating a new national holiday is actually pretty achievable, you just need to make your proposition public and gain support. If you want to see which national holidays already exist, visit https://nationaltoday.com/.