Originally Published September 2019

Welcome to October! I’m looking forward to celebrating some fun random holidays in October. Check out the month-long holiday celebrations in addition to the fun individual days throughout the month. Choose your favorites & add them to your calendar. Then involve family & friends (or not) and celebrate each random holiday in your own style.

By the way, if you’d like to find some great October Header Ideas for your bullet journal, check out this post.

What are Random Holidays?

Random holidays are not national holidays. Sometimes a company creates a holiday to promote their brand or product. (Like have a Coke day). Some holidays support a cause or charity. Most of the random holidays I chose for my Random Holiday Calendar are related to creativity, food, words, traveling (each state’s holiday is the day it became a state), and other fun holidays such as “International Talk Like a Pirate Day.”

At the bottom of this post, you’ll find a calendar with all of my curated Random Holidays. Don’t worry, I’ve included instructions so you can add this calendar to your Google calendar list so you won’t miss a chance to randomly celebrate! Toggle on/off the calendar as needed in your calendar list.

I hope you’ll join me in finding joy and good moments instead of focusing on worldly negativity. Choose a couple of random holidays to celebrate in the month with me and focus your attention on something that brings you joy.

Want ideas on how to celebrate? Check out this post.

What random holidays are you looking forward to the most in October?

I know I’m looking forward to National Homemade Cookie Day, National Be Nice Day/Do Something Nice Day, No Bra Day, National Dessert Day, and of course, National Chocolate Day.

This month is also National Sarcasm Awareness Month. Since sarcasm is my native language, I look forward to celebrating that all month long for sure!

To celebrate national homemade cookie day, I thought I’d share my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe if you can keep yourself from eating all of them, save a few and savor them on the chocolate day at the end of the month. FYI, they freeze really well as uncooked dough or after baking them. 

I promise you’ll want to pin this one! Find the recipe below.

Food Holidays in October

I love to celebrate with food. In addition to homemade cookie day here are some more food holidays in October:

1- National Homemade Cookies day – see below for my favorite homemade cookie recipe.
4 – Cinnamon Roll Day
4 – Taco Day
13 – M&M Day
14 – Dessert Day
17 – Pasta Day – seriously, I love when national days make my dinner plans for me. What kind of pasta would you eat on pasta day?
18 – Chocolate Cupcake Day
21 – Apple Day
24 – Food Day – this random holiday is more than it seems. Rather than stuffing our faces full of food, it focuses on eating healthy and cutting back on unhealthy foods.
26 – Pumpkin Day – I’m not particularly eager to eat pumpkins, but I sure do like to decorate them. October is a perfect month to celebrate this decorative fruit!
28 – Chocolate Day
30 – Candy Corn Day
31 – Caramel Apple Day

If you’d prefer to celebrate all month long, satisfy your sweet tooth with National Caramel Month. If you don’t have a sweet tooth, try celebrating National Pizza Month instead.

Whether it’s the chocolate day on the 28th, or a random holiday celebrating chocolate cupcakes on the 18th, I know I’ll indulge a little in this sweet treat. There’s a reason why I named my blog ChocolateMusings.com. Though I won’t participate in Candy Corn Day (my teeth hurt just thinking about this overly sweet candy) I had to add this special Random Holiday to the October calendar for my kids. What are your favorite treats?

I’m Celebrating Homemade Cookie Day!

(Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe)

• 1 cup each butter, sugar, and brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 t vanilla
• 2 1/2 c flour
• 2 c oatmeal, measured, then chopped in a food processor (not too fine)
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 teaspoon each baking powder & baking soda
• 1 (12 oz) bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 large Hershey’s chocolate bars chopped in a blender (freeze for easier chopping)
• 3 c chopped nuts

1. Cream butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla.
2. Mix, in a separate bowl, the flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Add to the butter and egg mixture.
3. Mix well. Stir in chocolate chips, chopped chocolate, and nuts.
4. Make golf-ball-sized cookies. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 375° for 11-12 minutes.

Creative Random Holidays in October

2 – Name your car day – what’s the name of your car?
6 – Mad Hatter Day
22 – National Color Day
25 – National Art Day / International Artists Day
28 – Animation Day

One idea to celebrate Name Your Car Day on the 2nd is to make a list of all the cars you’ve owned with their names in your bullet journal.

National Art Day/International Artists Day is on October 25th, and I’m excited to post some of my paintings on social media. Galaxy & moon landscapes are high on my love to paint list lately. There’s just something so relaxing about painting the night sky and watching the colors melt together.

Positivity/Self Care Random Holidays in October

5 – National Be Nice Day
5- National Do Something Nice day
7 – National Inner Beauty Day – don’t we all need a reminder to recognize our inner beauty?
13 – National No Bra Day – I’m not sure how many people would consider this day self-care, but I do! What’s your opinion about this day?
17 – Mulligan Day – seriously, look this one up. When I read what it meant, I knew I had to include it. Everyone deserves a second chance.
19 – Evaluate Your Life Day – enough said. Spend some time journaling or thinking about your goals. Then make your plans and live it out. Decide what you’d like to change. You could even celebrate Mulligan day a couple of days late and take a second chance!
29 – National Hermit Day – because sometimes you need a break from society to restore your mental health.

Monthly Holidays

All month long, you can celebrate “I’m Just Me Because…” and Emotional Wellness Month.

Every first Friday of October – celebrate World Smile Day
Every 4th Saturday of October – randomly celebrate Make a Difference Day

Get a handle on your finances during October’s Financial Planning Month. I don’t know about you, but when I have my finances under control, it’s always a reason to celebrate. I dedicate a lot of pages in my bullet journal to tracking finances but I also use an app called “You Need a Budget” (believe me, I’ve used many programs and have stuck with this one for several years). It helped save our finances during a year of unemployment. How do you track your finances?

Animal Celebrations

4 – World Animal Day
8 – World Octopus Day
20 – International Sloth Day – celebrate this day in two ways. The first by celebrating this slow-moving animal. The second way to celebrate is to slow yourself down and take a break from stress.
27 -Black Cat Day

All month long you can celebrate Bat Appreciation Month and Black Cat Appreciation month. I don’t know if there is a more perfect month than October for these Random holidays.

I love to doodle animals – to celebrate world animal day (and other various animal days), I created these fun animal outline pintables available in my shop!

More Fun & Random Holidays in October

10 – Handbag Day – what’s in your bag?
12 – Savings Day (this month is also financial planning month – just in time to prepare for the upcoming holiday season)
16 – Dictionary Day
18 – No Beard Day – we just celebrated beard day in September, so I guess we need an opposite holiday?
21 – Back to the Future Day – I’d love to celebrate by watching this fun trilogy. In case you didn’t know, the Delorean was set to go back to October 21, so it only fits to celebrate today!
31 – Doorbell Day and Knock-knock jokes day (of course to celebrate Halloween).

Some other fun month-long random holidays to add to your October Calendar:

• Go on a Field Trip Month
• Roller Skating Month – my kids will be excited for this one!
• Sarcasm Awareness Month – you’re welcome for this one.

Random Holiday Archives

Do you need more reasons to celebrate? I know I do! Find my random holiday archives here, PLUS find more ideas & ways to celebrate random holidays. Browse through all of my hand-picked holidays grouped by month. Give your family a reason to #randomlycelebrate.

By the way, if you’d like to find out more about a holiday, check the links in the random holiday archive. You’ll find all the random holiday sources I used to compile my favorites list. Click on one of the entries in the Random Holidays Calendar for even more details!

By the way, you can add the Google Calendar to your calendar list and always have random holidays at your fingertips – each calendar entry has a direct link to the original source and the social media hashtag recommendation. (Tip: You can toggle on and off the calendar as needed!) Check out the random holiday archives here!

Skip Right to a Month to Start Celebrating:

Random Holiday Links:

Choose The Holidays Right for You

What if you don’t like the holidays I choose? Below are links to the other random holiday sites I found – pick your favorites and celebrate the ones that resonate with you! It’s about breaking out of the monotony and creating your happiness.

Find more to celebrate – I compiled my random holidays from the websites below. There are so many holidays to enjoy! If you find a day you’d like me to feature – leave me a note below!

• Nationaldaycalendar.com
• Nationaltoday.com
• daysoftheyear.com
• checkiday.com
• heywhatday.com
• Timeanddate.com
• holidayinsights.com
• wildcalendar.com
• thereisadayforthat.com

What Will You Celebrate?

I hope you find something to celebrate that brings you joy this month. Do a little self-care or enjoy something new and break out of your regular schedule. I’d love to know what you’re going to celebrate randomly – leave me a comment below or tag me on Instagram @ChocolateMusingsCreates. And if you try my homemade cookie recipe, I’d love to know what you think.