These Two Creatives Celebrated a Different Holiday Every Single Day of 2021
Throughout 2020, Jason Goldberg and Allie Carr, associate creative directors at Erich and Kallman in San Francisco, (like many of us) just wanted life to go back to normal. Sheltering and working from home made all their days blend together and they began longing for the holiday season - a season to celebrate.
That got them thinking. Is there something that they could celebrate every single day?
The short answer is yes. And the end result of their research is ‘Every Day Holiday’, a truly enjoyable personal creative project in which they - you guessed it - celebrated a recognised holiday every single day of 2021.
“While we might have rolled our eyes at a few of them (like National Fruit Cake Toss Day),” they say, “we realised that celebrating them might make each day a little more fun. Then we realised that celebrating them every day for an entire year might make life…a lot more fun. We just chose the holidays that were the most interesting, fun, weird, and doable to us. We are both full time ACDs at an advertising agency in San Francisco, so ‘doable’ was a pretty strong criteria.”
Given that there are 365 days and 365 holidays that Jason and Allie celebrated, it would be most impractical to list them all here (you can see all of them on the designated Instagram account). But there are a few that they hadn’t previously celebrated and had a particular effect on them.
National Tattoo Day, 17th July, saw Jason get his first ever tattoo, which is kinda permanent. “While the tattoo itself had a quite literal and lasting effect, he also discovered a newfound desire to get many more,” they say. “Sorry, mom.”
Jason and Allie stripped off for National Beach Day, 30th August, and went to a nudist beach for the first time. Everyone should try it at least once, they reckon. “It’s insanely liberating and fun.”
For World Cancer Day, 4th February, they convinced San Francisco City Hall to light up their building in blue and orange, the colours of World Cancer Day. “It was unbelievable that a cold email to SF city hall resulted in such a uniting celebration for the community,” they say.
They adopted an actual, real-life cat on National Pet Day, April 11th.
On May Day, 1st May and the celebration of the Spring Equinox, they visited a commune in the middle of nowhere. “We walked around a maypole, learned how to skin a goat, and danced in a drum circle. It was straight out of Midsommar minus all the scary stuff. They were the nicest, warmest people ever.”
Jason and Allie believe they discovered “the absolute best burger ever made in the history of the universe” on National Burger Day, 28th May. “We think about it almost every day,” they say.” It’s called the Blueberry Bacon Blue-cheese Burger Au Poivre from Scolari’s Good Eats in Alameda.”
18th August marked National Bad Poetry Day, which they celebrated by heading to an open mic night and proudly reading the worst poems they could conjure, without actually telling attendees that they were celebrating bad poetry day. “It was the most embarrassing day of the year.”
And finally, National Cherry Pit Spitting Day, which takes place on the first Saturday of July, is a new annual tradition for Jason, Allie and their friends. “We hosted a pit spitting competition in our backyard with a bunch of friends and neighbours. It was so fun! We decided to make it an annual tradition.”
They’ve also picked up a bunch of new hobbies and learned a bunch about the world and themselves as creatives. They picked up gardening thanks to National Weed Your Garden Day, bread-baking thanks to World Baking Day, and volunteering at a food bank thanks to Giving Tuesday. Also, they are now the proud owners of Crocs, thanks to National Croc Day. Is Croc-wearing a passion? I hope it is.
“We learned so much,” they add. “Some key takeaways, though… You have so much more time in the day than you think you do. People (literal strangers) are rooting for you. And they will help you if you find the courage to ask. Just start. Whatever project you’ve been mulling over, just jump in headfirst. You don’t need to obsess over the details, you can always fine tune later.
“We learned how to pivot really quickly. We didn’t do any pre-celebrating or content capturing beforehand. Every celebration had to happen on the correct day which created a really interesting restriction and taught us how to get really creatively flexible. Too windy to go skydiving on Face Your Fears Day? Ok, well it's also International Scream In Frustration Day, so I guess we gotta go scream in the woods now.
“There is quite literally something to celebrate every single day. Every day is an opportunity to try a new food, try a new hobby, explore a new subculture, or have a reason to be extremely silly (looking at you, National Wear a Plunger On Your Head Day).”
