This is going to be a wonderful day. As long as we don’t have to get on the scale, things will be great. Today is National Milk Chocolate Day. This July 28 holiday is a special day for a special treat. Are you a “Chocaholic”? If you are, you look forward to each and every chocolate related holidays. There’s milk chocolate everywhere. So, this holiday is an easy one to enjoy.

There are lots of flavors of chocolate. Milk chocolate is enjoyed in candies and in baking. Milk chocolate is the favorite of millions of people. So, its only fitting that it gets its very own special national day.

Important Note: Don’t be dyslexic about this special day. Today is a day for Milk Chocolate, not Chocolate Milk Day. But, why not wash down a milk chocolate candy, with a glass of chocolate milk!?

Lest there be any doubt about celebrating this day…….. Today should be spent consuming and savoring generous amounts of your favorite milk chocolate treats.

Happy National Milk Chocolate Day!

We’re entering the hottest days of summer. We look to cool off in many ways. The pool or the beach is tops on our list. But, right behind in popularity is consuming copious amounts of ice cream. (We’ll all go on a diet after summer is over) As a result, it’s only fitting that we celebrate more than a few ice cream holidays in July and August. Today we celebrate Make You Own Sundae Day, a July 11 holiday. 

Importantly, we don’t just eat ice cream sundaes today. Rather, we express our creativity as we make our own, with a wide selection of toppings. After all, it’s the toppings that makes the sundae.

National Macaroni and Cheese Day, also called National Mac and Cheese Day, is upon us. Doesn’t that give you a warm feeling all over? This July 14 holiday brings back fond memories of childhood, as mac and cheese has always been a childhood favorite. It’s inexpensive, easy to make, tastes good, and kids love it. Now, that’s a winning combination!

The popularity of mac and cheese has had a resurgence in recent years among adults. Macaroni and cheese has popped up on restaurant menus, each with its own little twist. Food truck rodeos are not complete without at least one food truck listing mac and cheese on their menu. New recipe books, are all but certain to have at least one macaroni and cheese recipe. We’ve become creative, too. Along with traditional macaroni and cheese, almost any combination of cheeses are now used. Also, you can get smoked macaroni and cheese, fried mac and cheese, and a seemingly endless list of ingredients and ways to cook it. 

Macaroni and cheese has been in the recipe books for centuries. It is believed to have originated in Italy in the 14th century. The first recording of a recipe was in the 14th-century English cookbook “Forme and Cury”.  Thomas Jefferson brought the recipe to America in the late 1700s. Nowadays, we commonly associate macaroni and cheese with Kraft Foods, who has offered it commercially since 1937. While many other companies, offer it, Kraft Foods Mac and Cheese is by far the most popular.

 Did You Know? In 1993, Crayola Corporation named a crayon “Macaroni and Cheese”. Whether you’re eating at home or going out to dinner tonight, make sure to have macaroni and cheese!

People of all ages love lollipops, or suckers as they are commonly called. National Lollipop Day is today. This July 20 holiday is a day to enjoy candy on a stick as we celebrate and enjoy the creation of Lollipops. Could you imagine how sheltered our childhood, and perhaps adulthood, would be if the suckers had never been invented!? It sure would be a duller, and less tasteful world.

Select your favorite sucker flavor and then lick and suck on it all day. Speaking of flavors, the traditional cherry, orange, lemon, and lime are now joined with dozens of new and sometimes unique flavors. Different candy manufacturers rate the popularity of the flavors differently. So, it’s hard to identify which flavor is the most popular. Cherry is my personal favorite. So, I’ll go out on a limb and say cherry is the most popular lollipop flavor.

Play the Lollipop Game: Drill holes into a thick, flat board. Paint the bottom portion of a couple of lollipop sticks. Stick the lollipops at random, into the holes in the board. Each player gets to select a lollipop. If they pull the one with the painted stick, they win a prize!

For the Record: On July 18, 2012, See’s Candy Company in Burlingame, CA made the world’s largest lollipop. The chocolate lollipop was almost 5 feet tall and weighed over 7,000 pounds.

National Lasagna Day is today, a July 29 holiday. We hope you have a big appetite. Sure, it’s July. Its hot and humid. Cooking up a pan of Lasagna will make the kitchen a lot hotter. But as it cooks, the smell will waft throughout the house. Your mouth will begin to water. When dinner time arrives, you will have a huge appetite for a huge piece of lasagna. Of this, you can be certain.

Lasagna is a favorite Italian dish. In between multiple layers of lasagna pasta are generous amounts of tomato sauce, cheeses, and sometimes hamburger and/or Italian sausage. It’s the favorite Italian dish of millions of Americans. We all would eat it more often, but this culinary work of art, made with loving hands, takes time to make and bake.

It is best to celebrate National Lasagna Day by baking the lasagna that you will eat today. If you don’t have the time, or the weather is just too hot, then head out to your favorite Italian restaurant.

Happy National Lasagna Day!

The world would be a better place if only people would laugh more often. We should start and end each day with a good laugh. Today is International Joke Day, a very funny day. This July 1 holiday is destined to be a real belly laughter.

There are plenty of problems, trouble, and unhappiness in the world. Dontcha think the world would be a far better place if we’d all just chill out a little, and laugh a whole lot more!? ‘Ya never know. If people around the world get into the theme of the day, it just might be the start of something great.

Take the opportunity to get the jokes started today. Use the internet to spread funny jokes and stories. Pass them along to everyone on your email list. Hopefully, some of your email “buddies” live outside of the U.S. By sending jokes to them, you’ve helped to get the ball rolling to make this a truly international experience.

Ahhh, isn’t a kiss intimately special? It is so special that we get two holidays to enjoy it. You can choose to participate in International Kissing Day or National Kissing Day. As for me and my sweetie, we will enjoy both days to the fullest extent possible. The objective of this very special day is to appreciate and enjoy a kiss. So, go ahead and swap some spit today. Pucker up and give out a big, juicy one with a loud “smack” to anyone and everyone.

Kissing originated thousands, and perhaps millions of years ago. It is believed to have originated from mouth-to-mouth feeding of parents to a child. My, it certainly has evolved over the centuries. But, why is that? The answer is simply because it makes us feel good.

There are all manners of kissing. You can be so happy with someone that “I could kiss you”. And, then you do. You can smooch on the couch. Teenagers enjoy necking parking in a car or other private places. In a similar manner, you can “Suck Face” almost anywhere when you are alone. You can be “making out” almost anywhere.

People are not the only creatures to smooch. Apes, cats, dogs, and dolphins, are among the animals that share a kiss or two.

Did You Know? Okay, you may not want to know this juicy tidbit. Kissing can transmit 80 million microbes of bacteria.

The World Record Longest Kiss: Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarathold from Thailand hold this envious record at 58 hours, 35 minutes and 58 seconds. How would you like to beat that!?

The world is filled with too much hatred, too much fighting, and too much mistrust of others. The International Day of Friendship is certainly an opportunity to stop, and to reverse, these worldwide problems.

According to the United Nations, the official sponsor of this special day, the International Day of Friendship is a day set aside to promote friendship among peoples, cultures, and countries. Today is a time to encourage efforts toward peace and to build bridges among different people. It is a day of respect for others, and a day to celebrate diversity.

Undoubtedly, the world will be a better place when people, organizations, and countries are friendly with one another.

This could be an unforgettable day, Or, it might be a day to forget. It is I Forgot Day, a July 2 holiday. Strangely, today is not a day to remember. So, just what are you forgetting? Can you even remember? Is it important? Hopefully, not.

Some days are days to remember and to cherish all of our lives. Others, like today, are ones to be forgotten. If you are having a bad day, it’s just as well that this day has arrived. We do hope that you are not getting married or having a baby today.

Some people view today as an opportunity to express their regrets for forgetting something, and to make amends. They do so by sending cards and flowers, apologizing for their memory lapse. The trouble is, if you forget something important tomorrow, you have to wait a whole year for the next I Forgot Day to arrive.

What are Gummi Worms? Why they are a gross and yucky, yet deliciously sweet and sour chewable gelatin candy. That translates into a wildly popular candy for young children, teens, and even many adults. Never mind that they are loaded with sugar and therefore not good for you. Everyone loves the flavors, along with the squishy, worm-like texture. Therefore, it’s only appropriate that today we get to celebrate Gummi Worm Day. So, enjoy this July 15 holiday with a big handful of icky gummi worms.

Unlike their predecessor, the ever-popular and cute little gummi bears, gummi worms have the “yuck” factor nailed. You can use gummi worms in many ways. You can enjoy them all by themselves. But, the fun is the many creative ways you can put them into desserts and snacks. Just imagine the decorating possibilities. You can partially or fully hide them in pudding, Jell-O, frosting on cakes and muffins, mix them in a fresh fruit salad, and so much more. You are only limited by your imagination. Of course, they are very popular in Halloween treats, too. For Halloween, the grosser the better.

Did You Know? The original name for them in Germany is “Gummi”. In the United States, people translated it to “Gummy”. However, you can spell it any way you prefer. I promise everyone will know exactly what you are referring to.