A Sprinkling of Offbeat Holidays
A while back I did a post listing several holidays which provided excuses to party in a Halloween-like manner on dates other than Halloween. I keep meaning to expand that into a proper Goth Calendar with celebrations throughout the year, which at the rate I’m going will probably be completed some time in 2017. In the meantime, here are a few notable dates which might be worth hanging a celebration on.
Some of these don’t seem to have any sort of “official” imprimatur, but have at least made it far enough into the collective unconscious that you can pull up Google and say, “See? It is too a real holiday!”
January 3 – Memento Mori Day
January 5 – Befana Day
January 19 – Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday (1809)
April – The first week in April is Be Kind to Spiders Week
April 4 – World Rat Day
April 30/May 1 – Walpurgis Night
May 3 – Paranormal Day
May 11 – Twilight Zone Day
May 22 – World Goth Day
July – The first Sunday is Build a Scarecrow Day
August 7 – Erszebet Bathory’s birthday (1560)
October 15 – Jack the Ripper’s “From Hell” letter is received (1888)
October 20 – Bela Lugosi’s birthday (1882)
November 2 – Plan Your Own Epitaph Day
November 5 – Guy Fawkes Night
November 8 – Bram Stoker’s birthday (1847)
December 5 – Krampusnacht
Feel free to leave additional suggestions in the comments!
Posted in Resources | 4 Comments »
February 21st, 2011 at 5:10 pm
I had no idea there was a be kind to spiders holiday. I just bought the perfect cards for it! (I bought them because I couldn’t put it off any longer but had no idea who I could send them to.)
I also love the idea of a Goth calendar (you could make it an iPhone app! or even better, a webcal that people could subscribe to!) and am compiling a list of people to send it to in 2017.
February 22nd, 2011 at 12:09 pm
We seem to be on a similar wavelength! Specifically, I’ve been looking into witchy holidays besides the 8 sabbats, one for every month, like Hecate Night in November.
February 22nd, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Woohoo! Guy Fawkes Night!!!!!
They actually do celebrate this in some areas of the world… For instance, in Newfoundland they hold “Bon-Fire” night every year on that date… It’s an excuse to have a big fire and fireworks… What else do you need to celebrate the anniversary of an elaborate conspiracy to blow up a parliment? :)
February 23rd, 2011 at 1:57 am
Edward Gorey’s birthday was today (22 Feb) too. I’m somewhat surprised that wasn’t included.
Other than that, these are days that are definitely going on my calendar.