December 18: Flake Appreciation Day
Flake Appreciation Day is a special US holiday to show appreciation for snowflakes. Really, now, how often do snowflakes get appreciation? Think it’s easy to fall all that distance? Think it’s fun? Go to all that trouble to make the winter landscape beautiful and what does the rest of the world do? It walks all over you. A Flake Appreciation Day is long overdue!
Snowflakes are beautiful, unique, and naturally occurring. They are created when water vapor in clouds freezes around dust particles due to humidity. There are 35 different categories of snowflakes, each with in complex shapes and sizes. As with human fingerprints, no 2 snowflakes are exactly alike.
Snowflakes have different numbers of water molecules, and it is these molecules which cause them to form a crystal pattern. A six-sided crystal snowflake is most common, but flat or thin needle-shaped flakes also form. Snowflakes have different amounts of oxygen and hydrogen, which also affects their shape. Although they are made of clear ice, they appear white because of diffuse reflection. Snowflakes can be studied by putting a chemical compound on a glass plate and waiting for a flake to land on it. Once one lands, the compound covers it and hardens. After the flake melts it leaves behind its shape.
Wilson Bentley was an important person in snowflake history. Born in Vermont, in 1865, Bentley used photomicrography — a type of photography that uses microscopes — to capture the images of 5,000 snowflakes. He found none were exactly alike and published articles and books of his findings. He also donated some of his photographs to the Smithsonian Institution. By the time of his death in 1931, he was known as the world’s leading snowflake expert and as “The Snowflake Man.”
A favorite of young and old alike, National Hard Candy Day recognizes the sweet tooth in all of us. Hard candy consists almost entirely of sugar. It is made by boiling sugar-based syrups — such as fructose, sucrose, and glucose — to about 320°F. After being removed from the heat, flavorings and dyes may be added, and the syrup is often poured into a mold to cool. When it has cooled off a bit, but is still pliable, it can be formed into a desired shape. After fully cooling — voila! — hard candy.
Many hard candies are lozenge shaped, and the flavor of hard candy lasts until the candy has completely melted in your mouth. Some popular hard candies include butterscotch, made primarily with brown sugar and butter; candy buttons, a hard candy attached to strips of paper; gobstoppers or jawbreakers; Jolly Ranchers; Life Savers; stick candy; Sweethearts, heart shaped candy popular around Valentines Day; lollipops; and candy cane and ribbon candy, popular near the holidays. In 2015, Jolly Rancher surpassed Werther's Original as the best-selling hard candy. Other popular hard candies brands include Dum Dum Pops, Life Savers, Tootsie Roll Pops, and Charms Blow Pop.
Hard candy became popular in the 17th century as sugar prices fell. Previously, hard candy was something that only the well-to-do could afford. By the mid-1800s, over 400 companies were manufacturing this popular treat. Today we consider hard candies a treat. However, the first of the ilk, such as lemon drops and peppermints, were likely prescribed as a remedy for stomach ailments.
Although most hard candy is full of sugar, there are some sugar-free varieties as well, which are made from substances such as isomalt, aspartame, saccharin, and xylitol.
On July 12, 2012, See’s Candies Lollypop Factory created the largest lollipop. It measured 4 feet 8.75 inches long and 3 feet 6 inches wide and 5 feet 11 inches high without the stick. The stick alone measured 11 feet 10 inches tall. As for candy canes, A. Fabiano's Chocolates and Ice Cream set the record on December 5, 1998, in Lansing, MI. The candy cane measured 36 feet 7 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. Hang that on your tree!
December 20: Poet Laureat Day
Ever since this date in 1985, the US has had an official position called Poet Laureate. A poet laureate is a poet who is officially appointed by a government to write poems for special events. It’s been a thing since the 1300s, and governments worldwide — large and small — have responded. The Poet is a Laureat because, originally, honored poets were “crowned” with a wreath of laurels, as was done for heros in Ancient Greece.
There are at least 18 nations who designate a poet laureat, including Canada, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, North Korea, Serbia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Several parts-of-nations — states, counties, cities — also name official poets laureates
Currently, American poets laureate receive a $60,000 stipend. This was originally meant to provide a nice standard of living, to remove the cares and worries about making money, so that the poet could devote all of his or her time to writing poetry. However, the stipend was never adjusted for inflation; now it’s just a bonus, and poets laureate almost always get the bulk of their salaries from teaching at universities.
In the US, poets laureates have unusual “duties,” including overseeing a series of poetry readings at the Library of Congress and generally promoting poetry. The duties are unusual because American poets laureate are not required to write poems for events and patriotic holidays, which is the traditional poet laureate role. (They sometimes are moved to do so, however.)
At least 13 US states have poets laureate. In 1985, New York established a state poet laureate position, which is currently held by Patricia Spears Jones, who was appointed to a 2-year term in 2023. Spears Jones is the author of 5 collections of poetry. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Jackson Poetry Prize, fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
The US Poet Laureat is appointed by the Librarian of Congress. In July 12, 2022, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed Ada Limón as the 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and reappointed her for a historic 2-year second term on April 24, 2023. Limón’s 2nd term began in September 2023 and will conclude in April 2025. Ada Limón was born in Sonoma, California, in 1976, of Mexican ancestry. She is the author of 6 poetry collections. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University and is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
December 21: Crossword Puzzle Day
Sharpen your pencils and your minds, all in one go, on National Crossword Puzzle Day, commemorating the birth of the challenging word game enjoyed by millions wordwide. These amazing word twisters allow you to both expand your vocabulary and your problem-solving skills. There’s nothing like a crossword to start the day with your morning coffee, something to get the old gears going.
The phrase “cross word puzzle” was first written in the US in 1862 by Our Young Folks magazine. Crossword-like puzzles, for example “Double Diamond Puzzles,” appeared in the magazine St. Nicholas since 1873. Another crossword puzzle appeared on September 14, 1890, in the Italian magazine Il Secolo Illustrato della Domenica. It was designed by Giuseppe Airoldi and titled “Per passare il tempo” (“To pass the time”). Airoldi’s puzzle was a 4-by-4 grid with no shaded squares; it included horizontal and vertical clues. Crosswords in England during the 19th century were of an elementary kind, apparently derived from the word square, a group of words arranged so the letters read alike vertically and horizontally, and printed in children’s puzzle books and various periodicals.
On December 21, 1913, Arthur Wynne, a journalist born in Liverpool, England, published a “word-cross” puzzle in the New York World that embodied most of the features of the modern genre. This puzzle is frequently cited as the first crossword puzzle, and Wynne as the inventor. An illustrator later reversed the “word-cross” name to “cross-word.” The term crossword first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1933.
Crossword puzzles became a regular weekly feature in the New York World, and spread to other newspapers. The Pittsburgh Press, for example, was publishing them at least as early as 1916, and The Boston Globe by 1917. By the 1920s, the crossword phenomenon was starting to attract notice. The first book of crossword puzzles was published by Simon & Schuster in 1924, after a suggestion from co-founder Richard Simon’s aunt. Initially skeptical that the book would succeed, the publisher only printed a small run at first. The book included a pencil and was an instant hit, leading crossword puzzles to become a craze of 1924. To help promote its books, Simon & Schuster also founded the Amateur Cross Word Puzzle League of America, which began the process of developing standards for puzzle design.
In The New Yorker’s inaugural issue, in 1925, the “Jottings About Town” section observed, “Judging from the number of solvers in the subway and ‘L’ trains, the crossword puzzle bids fair to become a fad with New Yorkers.” The same year, the New York Public Library reported that “The latest craze to strike libraries is the crossword puzzle,” and complained that when “the puzzle ‘fans’ swarm to the dictionaries and encyclopedias so as to drive away readers and students who need these books in their daily work, can there be any doubt of the Library’s duty to protect its legitimate readers?” A 1924 New York Times editorial complained of the “sinful waste in the utterly futile finding of words the letters of which will fit into a prearranged pattern, more or less complex.” A clergyman called the working of crossword puzzles “the mark of a childish mentality” and added, “There is no use for persons to pretend that working one of the puzzles carries any intellectual value with it.”
However, by 1925, 9 Manhattan dailies and 14 other big newspapers were carrying crosswords, and quoted opposing views as to whether “This crossword craze will positively end by June!” or “The crossword puzzle is here to stay!” The New York Times finally finally ended its criticism of crossword puzzles and began to publish its own on 15 February 1942, spurred on by the idea that the puzzle could be a welcome distraction from the harsh news of World War II.
The British cryptic crossword was imported to the US in 1968 by composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim in New York magazine. A cryptic crossword is a crossword puzzle in which each clue is itself a word puzzle. Until 2006, The Atlantic Monthly regularly featured a cryptic crossword “puzzler.”
Many tout the benefits of crossword puzzles. Not only are they fun, but challenging crossword puzzles may help delay the effects of dementia or sharpen the brain for problem-solving. They can also increase vocabulary and even relieve the mind from the day’s stress by focusing on something other than worldly problems.
December 22: National Date Nut Bread Day
On National Date Nut Bread Day, we celebrate the healthy, wholesome, and flavorful bread enjoyed for breakfast, snack time, and as a dessert.
Date nut bread is pretty much self-explanatory: dates and nuts — such as walnuts and pecans — are thrown into the mix and baked to perfection. Dates, or date palms, have been cultivated in the Middle East and Indus Valley since as early as 4,000 BC, and probably originated around Iraq. Dates spread to South West Asia, northern Africa, and Spain through trade, and were brought to Mexico and California by the Spaniards in 1765. There are 3 variations of dates: soft, dry, and semi-dry. Dates provide essential nutrients and are an excellent source of dietary potassium. In ripe dates, the sugar content is about 80% of the fruit. The remainder of the date consists of protein, fiber, and trace elements of boron, cobalt, copper, fluorine, magnesium, manganese, selenium, and zinc. Many nuts are also good sources of vitamins E and B2. And they are rich in protein, folate fiber, and essential minerals such as magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, and selenium. Several studies have shown that those who consume nuts on a regular basis are less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease.
One type of date nut bread — date and walnut loaf — is traditionally eaten in Britain along with a cup of tea. The loaf is made with treacle (a sugary syrup), along with dates and walnuts. It is also popular in Scotland, Australia, and New Zealand.
In the US, date nut bread is also popular, especially around the holidays. One reason that National Date Nut Days takes place on December 22 is likely because it is close to the holiday season.
Printed recipes for date nut bread go back as far as the 1920s, but bread baked with fruit was eaten in various parts of the world long before that. It is widely believed that date nut bread was originally baked and first became popular in England. Date nut bread is packed with flavor and nutritious ingredients, without being overwhelmingly sweet. For an added punch, cheese frosting is often used as a topping or filling.
December 23: National Roots Day
Your family roots are one of the components that helped shape you into who you are today. It’s possible that relatives from centuries ago possessed values that they passed to their children, that continued down the line, that you count as your own values today. Similarly, choices that they made, such as where to move to, might have influenced where you were born. The roots closest to you, your parents and grandparents, likely have had the biggest impact on your life, and if you have children of your own, you are the roots that will have the largest impact on them. On National Roots Day, a day set aside in recognition of family heritage, we celebrate our roots, and learn about our ancestors and from them.
Appropriately, National Roots Day takes place during the time referred to as the holiday season, when relatives — siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, adult children, and grandchildren — spend much of their time together, like a living family tree. Gather photos — and get them labeled before memories fade. Names, places, and dates become fuzzy after a decade or 2. Strive to involve every generation. Share struggles and accomplishments. Document stories from one generation to another. Each generation is made up of the previous generation’s efforts, travels, failures, and successes.
You may need to do some research on your own to gain a more complete understanding of your family heritage. You may find yourself poring over documents in a local library, historical society, or courthouse, or spending time on newspaper databases or genealogical websites such as Ancestry. You may ask yourself and find answers to questions like: Who were these people? How did they get here? What did they do for work? What were their successes and failures? You may even come across striking stories and fascinating events about an individual in your family or you may find out that you are related to someone of historical importance. The fruits of your labor on National Roots Day may be something intangible — like inspiration from those who came before you — or may be tangible, like a new genealogy account of your family. At the very least, through exploration and investigation, you’ll come to a better understanding of your roots.
December 24: National Eggnog Day
Eggnog — also known as egg nog or egg-nog, and milk punch or egg milk punch when alcohol is added — is usually made with milk, cream, sugar, and whipped eggs. It can be homemade or purchased at the store, and distilled spirits such as rum, brandy, whiskey, and bourbon are often added. Homemade recipes vary, and since they often use raw eggs, there is a concern that the eggs may contain salmonella, which may lead to food poisoning. The commercial variety usually contains less cream and eggs than the homemade version, and thickeners such as gelatin are used instead. Eggnog is often topped with cinnamon and nutmeg, and is sometimes topped with whipped cream, chocolate shavings, or a vanilla pod. Popular in the US during the holiday season — from Thanksgiving until the new year — it is usually served cold, but can be served warm. It can also be added to other drinks such as coffee.
The history of eggnog is debated, but the drink seems to have come from a British drink called posset, which was popular from medieval times until the 19th century. It consisted of hot milk with wine or ale; eggs were sometimes added. As it used expensive ingredients, it was popular with the rich, and they often used the drink in toasts.