Just look around at all of the people you see today. It’s pretty clear that Americans are not getting enough exercise. Would you like to get into peak shape and improve your health? Do you want to live longer? Are you looking for an amateur sport that you can participate, in and even compete in? Then, National Take the Stairs Day is for you!  If taking the stairs is a little foreign to you, set an initial goal to always walk up one flight and down two flights. While you get the most benefit from walking upstairs, walking downstairs is good for you, too. 

The primary goal of this special day is to encourage you and me to improve our health, by leaving the elevator behind, and walking up the stairs. Walking up and down stairs, instead of using the elevator or escalator, is a non-impact activity that most of us can do. It helps us tone our muscles, maintain or even lose weight, and contribute to cardiovascular health.

Most smartphones have an app that counts stairs. If your phone does not have it, you can download a stair-counting app.

Stair Climbing Factoid: A 160-pound person who climbs for 3 minutes, expends approximately 30 calories.

Did You Know? Stair Climbing, either walking or running, is an organized, amateur competitive event!

Discover and enjoy the health benefits of taking the stairs today. Then, make it a daily habit.

Today is National Spaghetti Day, a January 4 holiday. Grab a big bowl, fill it with spaghetti, and top it with a generous helping of your favorite sauce. Then, dig in. And, don’t forget the meatballs and parmesan cheese! Spaghetti is one of over 600 shapes of pasta. It is by far, the most popular shape. Spaghetti is topped off with any one of 15 types of sauce. Marinara sauce is the most popular.

Of course, many people think of Italy and Italian cuisine, as the birthplace of spaghetti. In reality, pasta or macaroni dates back to ancient times. Ancient cultures were cooking pasta noodles well before they were introduced to Italy and other parts of Europe. Marco Polo is erroneously credited with bringing spaghetti and pasta to Europe. But, records show Europeans cooking pasta well before Marco Polo began his travels. Peering even farther back in time, Arab cultures were selling dried spaghetti-like noodles in open markets in the early 1200s. The Chinese were cooking pasta noodles as far back as 5,000 B.C.

While ancient cultures were making and eating spaghetti and other pasta well before it came to Europe, it’s the Italians who popularized it in cuisines. It was introduced into the United States through the travels of Thomas Jefferson, who brought it back from Naples, Italy in 1789. Italian immigrants also brought it over with them to the U.S., where its popularity quickly spread. 

Spaghetti in Italian means thin string or twine.

On a National Spaghetti Day, we hope you thoroughly enjoy your bowl of Spaghetti today. To more completely enjoy this special day, make the spaghetti noodles yourself. It’s a cinch. All you need is flour, water, and a pasta maker.

The holidays are over, and things have certainly slowed down. The snow is piling up outside. Somewhere out there, your garden is under inches, if not feet of snow. Spring is so, so far away. What’s a gardener to get excited about!? If you plan on planting a garden this spring, the last Saturday of January is a huge holiday, It’s National Seed Swap Day!

People have been swapping and trading seeds, since man, or woman, first tilled the soil of this planet. Centuries ago, seeds and even flower bulbs have been used as a form of currency or to barter. Gardeners are always anxious to acquire varieties of seeds they’ve never grown before. We cherish uncommon and heirloom seeds, the varieties you can’t buy in stores.

On National Seed Swap Day, garden groups and organizations, hold a seed swap for their members. It allows them to trade rare, uncommon, unique, and heirloom seeds. Garden hobbyists enjoy the challenge of growing something they haven’t grown before. So, this is both a fun and valuable event. Make plans to bring some seeds to swap to your local garden club. If you don’t belong to a group or club, join or start one. You’ll be glad you did!

Home gardeners simply love this holiday. It allows them a gardening activity in the middle of winter. And each seed offers them the promise of a beautiful and productive plant. Participate in National Seed Swap Day, and spring will not seem so far away.

Also see:

The Gardener’s Network – learn how to grow a spectacular home garden.

Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the United States, behind only coffee. A cold January day or night is the perfect time to enjoy a steaming hot cup of tea. To most of us, tea is a delicious and relaxing beverage. Drinking tea is healthy for you. With these things in mind, it is only fitting that today is National Hot Tea Day, a January 12 holiday.

It’s relaxingly easy to celebrate National Hot Tea Day. I’ve got a suggestion! Perhaps, you and I can have a cup of hot tea together today. Why we can even top the day off with a spot of tea during the evening hours.

This is a great day to stop drinking less healthy beverages and begin consuming healthy tea. Or, increase consumption if you already drink it. Tea is good for your health. It has been used medicinally for thousands of years. It settles the nervous system, helping you to relax. Tea is very soothing. Perhaps that’s why over 85% of Millennials drink tea. Tea has flavonoids and antioxidants. It is low in caffeine and has no sodium, fat, or sugar. And, tea has zero calories. Tea’s medicinal value is supported in many studies. It contributes to good health in many ways, including lowering the risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. If this isn’t a good reason to celebrate National Hot Tea Day, I don’t know what is.

Did You Know? 75% to 80% of tea consumption in the U.S. is Iced Tea. How cool is that!? 

Test your knowledge about tea: See Tea Trivia

It’s ingrained in our culture to bring in the New Year with a whole lot of optimism, anticipation, and alcohol. Millions of us partied last night, and we partied very hard. For many of us, the biggest drinking night of the year is followed by the biggest hangover of the year. For this very reason, National Hangover Day is celebrated as a January 1 holiday. Accordingly, it’s the day after the biggest party of the year.

Fortunately, most of us have the day off, so we can nurse our hangovers by sleeping in, taking aspirin, consuming copious amounts of tomato juice, and perhaps “a little bit of the dog that bit us”!

Normally, we think of ways to “celebrate” special days. For this special day, the goal is to simply get through it.  

Other Names: This special day is also called “Bad Hangover Day”.

Related Holidays: New Years’ Eve and Day

Cheese lovers, your day is here! Do you love cheese, all kinds of cheese? Splendid, as today is National Cheese Lovers Day, a January 20 holiday. Enjoy the day by savoring any of the hundreds of varieties of cheese. There certainly is no shortage of varieties. Depending on what article you read, there are between 900 – 1,400 varieties of cheese, all classified by texture.

It’s easy to celebrate this special day. Set out a tray of several varieties of your favorite cheese and dig in. Having a cheese-tasting party with your friends will make this day a truly memorable one.  And, don’t forget the wine. Cheese goes great with wine and just about everything else, too.

Eating cheese makes you feel good. So, don’t be bleu. Eat some cheese on National Cheese Lovers Day.

There’s a special day to celebrate donuts. So, it only makes sense that there should be a special day to give recognition to Bagels. Fortunately for bagel lovers, that day has thankfully arrived. Why National Bagel Day is so special, that some people refer to it as a “Hole-y Event!” As far as food holidays go, you’re gonna love this January 15 holiday.

Depending upon who you talk to and what you read, the word bagel and the recipe originates in different areas and at different times. In some places, bagels are spelled “biegels”. Some folks say the word “bagel” comes from the German word “Bougel”, dating back to the 16th century. But, it is believed that the recipe for bagels evolved from the ringed Polish bread “Obwarzanek”, which was invented in the late 14th century. In Krakow, Poland, they were given as gifts to women after childbirth.

We don’t care what it is called, or how it came to be. We are just thankful that there are plenty of bagels for all of us! As for flavor choice, I’ll take mine with everything!  

Setting the date Straight – The date for this special event was originally February 9. The date was moved to January 15 by bagel manufacturer Thomas Bagels, to avoid sharing the date with National Pizza Day.

The only requirement for this day is that you eat bagels. And, have it your way. You can have them toasted or un-toasted. Add whatever you prefer: lox, cream cheese, butter, or your favorite jelly.

Measure Your Feet Day, a January 23 holiday is a day to, well it’s a day to measure your feet. At this point, we stop and ask ourselves…why? We pondered this question for a while. Then, we decided it was best not to even speculate.

Celebrate today by determining the size of your feet. Both of them. Measure the length. Then, measure the width. For a little fun, see if you can measure someone else’s feet.

During our initial research in the early 2000s, everyone referred to this day as Measure Your Feet Day.  We were happy to determine that congress did not spend the time to declare this a “National” day. Then, we researched this day again in the early 2020s. We did not find any additional information. However, for some unknown reason, we discovered some internet websites were referring to it as National Measure our Feet Day. 

Our kids are our future. We’ve heard this expression used often and in many, many ways.  It’s well known that kids have creative, untethered minds. As a result, the youth of the world come up with a lot of good ideas, concepts, and inventions. All you need to do is encourage them, and then listen and see what happens. It’s only fitting that Kid Inventors Day exists to recognize kids for their past, present, and future achievements and inventions. This January 17 holiday also encourages kids to dream up new inventions and pursue their creative ideas.  

Never underestimate the value of the brilliant, young creative minds in the world. Untethered by why “you can’t do this”, or “you can’t you do that”, these inquisitive and ingenious young minds conceive and create countless ideas for products, processes, art, foods, and a whole lot more things that make our lives better, more fun, easier and more enjoyable. 

There are many great examples of kid inventors. According to Lee Ward, the creator of this day, children and teens invent over 500,000 gadgets and games every year! Perhaps the best example is Benjamin Franklin, who at the age of 12 invented swimming fins. As we all know, Benjamin Franklin grew up to be one of the greatest inventors in American history. With their “can do” attitude, youthful inventors and thinkers have brought countless inventions into existence. Among them are earmuffs, popsicles, and water skis. Every parent knows full well the impact of a kid’s creative thinking. We’ve all witnessed the seemingly wild and crazy concoctions they make in the kitchen. More than a few of these culinary creations turn into huge hits.   

It’s concert time. Dust off your favorite childhood musical instrument. People young and old love whimsical Kazoos. They are fun and easy to play. You don’t have to have musical talent. National Kazoo Day, a January 28 holiday. During this holiday, we celebrate the joy of this musical instrument.

Alabama Vest of Macon Georgia made the first Kazoo in the 1840s. He conceived the Kazoo and had Thaddeus Von Clegg, a German clock master make it to his specifications. 

Commercial production of the Kazoo didn’t occur until many years later in 1912. Manufacturing was first started by Emil Sorg in Western New York. Sorg joined up with Michael McIntyre, a Buffalo tool and die, maker. Production moved to Eden, NY where the factory museum remains today.

Kazoos are easy to play. Simply hum a tune into the kazoo, and you’re an expert. Kazoos can be played solo, or in groups. It plays a great tune both ways.

What do you do on National Kazoo Day? Why, play the kazoo, of course. A solo is quite acceptable. playing the kazoo with a group of friends is even more fun.

Did You Know? There is a Kazoo Museum located in Eden, New York. It is south of Buffalo.