Top 11 Fictional Holidays from TV Shows

By CJ Tiernan

Celebrating a Holiday with family and friends is one of the best things you get to do all year. We all bring our own traditions and practices to a Holiday celebration. It can be fun to watch someone else celebrate a holiday, especially when they bring something different to the table. We've all seen the Christmas episode with someone who is a little too into their traditions or the Halloween episode where a character has a singular focus on scaring someone else who is super not into that. What I love even more is watching characters celebrate a Holiday we have no context for here in the real world. Below is a list of my Top 11 favorite Fictional Holidays I've ever encountered in a TV Show.

1. Festivus - Seinfeld

S9E10 "The Strike"

festivusweb, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"A Festivus for the rest of us!" George Costanza's father, Frank, brings us the greatest of gifts under the tree: a new holiday. Celebrated 2 days before Christmas, Festivus includes activities such as feats of strength, airing of grievances, and an aluminum pole (stored in the crawl space). It is "all too real." In an episode that featured Kramer on strike at H&H Bagels and George attempting fraud by creating "The Human Fund" ("Money for People"), Festivus stands as the most enduring portion of the episode. It's a Festivus miracle!

2. Treat Yo' Self Day - Parks and Recreation

S4E4 "Pawnee Rangers"

Treat. Yo. Self. That is the sentiment from Tom Haverford and Donna Meagle in "Parks and Rec." They are not exactly known as the most selfless characters in the show, but they nonetheless decide to declare October 13th to be Treat Yo' Self Day. Designed as a day for self-indulgence, it is simply a day where they treat themselves to anything they want and become enablers for each other (and for Ben when he buys that Batman costume).

3. Slapsgiving - How I Met Your Mother

S3E9 "Slapsgiving"

This holiday is the gift that keeps on giving. Unlike most of the other holidays on this list, this is largely an actual holiday. As you may have deciphered from the portmanteau in the title, this day is also Thanksgiving. Earlier in the show (season 2), Marshall has won a bet over Barney allowing him to attain five slaps of Barney's face. Marshall opts to dole them out of time for maximum psychological torture. Barney is warned ahead of time that he will be slapped on Thanksgiving, coining the term "Slapsgiving." He manages to alter a holiday designed to give thanks and spend time with the ones you love into "The Stanford Prison Experiment." Spoiler Alert: there are also a Slapsgiving 2 and Slapsgiving 3. What a major delight! (Salutes while saying "Major delight!")

4. National TE Day - NFL

2019 Season

Celebrated on the 4th Sunday of every October, National Tight End Day celebrates the unsung hero of the NFL offense. The Tight End has a wide range of tasks throughout the game including both blocking defenders on the line of scrimmage and running routes to catch passes. The godfather of this holiday is George Kittle (University of Iowa Grad, a.k.a Tight End U). He and his then QB, Jimmy G, came up with it in 2018, with the NFL going all in the following year.

5. Katie Holmes Day - AP Bio

S3E8 "Katie Holmes Day"

This show was criminally under seen during its run and takes place in the city of Toledo, OH. According to the show, Katie Holmes is from Toledo (I didn't look it up to confirm) and she is celebrated by the town to such a degree she has gotten her own day. Townsfolk put on a play showcasing her casting on the TV Show "Dawson's Creek," as well as a citywide auction fundraiser. The best part is kids leave their shoes out on the porch overnight for Katie Holmes to place blueberry muffins in them. This is a weird and wholesome holiday. Seriously, though, you should watch this show. It stars Glenn Howerton and Patton Oswalt in a beautiful power dynamic imbalance plus Paula Pell and Allisyn Snyder are absolute scene-stealers.

6. Galentine's Day - Parks and Recreation

S2E16 "Galentine's Day"

Taking place the day before Valentine's Day, this is a day that features Leslie gathering her female friends together to celebrate each other. While several holidays on this list are celebrated these days in the real world, this one is probably the one that is celebrated most earnestly. Leslie Knope: not only a great gift-giver on the show, she has given the real world the gift of friendship.

7. Feynman Day - Eureka

S5E8 "In Too Deep"

Named for physicist Richard Feynman, and celebrated on his birthday, May 11th, this holiday is treated like April Fools' Day in the show Eureka. Feynman was known for his humor and odd personality, so this an homage payment of the highest order. The thing is, the show follows a group of insanely brilliant scientists in a secret lab in Eureka, Oregon, so the pranks get pretty elaborate, sophisticated, and dangerous. Pranks include a person whose outfit is being altered remotely, a helicopter is flipped upside down (not while in flight), a person's voice is replaced with dolphin noises (like that Key & Peele sketch), and an office is turned into an aquarium. I'm sure the fictional company Global Dynamics loves seeing money and payroll spent on these types of things. Seriously, though, I love this show.

8. Refrigerator Day - Dinosaurs

S2E12 "Happy Refrigerator Day"

Dinosaurs was an awesome '90s show. It featured dinosaurs living like people, played by a combo of puppets and people in costumes and makeup. Again, fantastic! During this episode, the dinosaurs celebrate the invention of the thing that allowed them to stop roaming the earth and settle down to have families: the refrigerator. It is a very funny, tongue-in-cheek holiday that I love for its simple innocence. The patriarch, Earl, is so genuinely into the holiday, praising the advent of food storage. I'm trying to think of a day where we celebrate an inanimate object. Arbor Day, maybe? Certainly nothing like this, the so called "Happiest Holiday in Pangaea."

9. Leap Day - 30 Rock

S6E9 "Leap Day"

Technically, this holiday exists. In fact, I'd probably have it higher if that wasn't the case. However, Tina Fey and brilliant minds behind 30 Rock altered this holiday to add some fun mythos behind it. Leap Day is the 29th of February, which is a date that occurs once every 4 years (with additional rules applying on certain round numbers to make the math more accurate). 30 Rock added fun features like a mythical character (Leap Day William, played gamely by Jim Carrey in a Rom Com within the show opposite Andie MacDowell) who exchanges candy for children's tears when he emerges from the Mariana Trench once every 4 years. It also features Alec Baldwin in a Christmas Carol-esque existential crisis. 'Twas one of the best holiday episodes ever.

10. Whacking Day - The Simpsons

S4E20 "Whacking Day"

Celebrated annually on May 10th (aw man, you could go back-to-back on holidays if you celebrate this one right before Feynman Day), the denizens of Springfield drive snakes into the town square, only to beat them with sticks and clubs. Now, if you do wish to celebrate this holiday, you may not want to dig as deeply into its history as Bart does in the episode (he reads a book by Bob Woodward on the history of Whacking Day), as it takes a turn that offends my Irish roots. On the surface, though: violence against animals sounds intriguing as part of a town-wide tradition.

11. Weasel Stomping Day - Robot Chicken

S2E12 "The Munnery"

Robot Chicken is a stop-motion animation comedy show on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. It doesn't offer a linear story, instead operating as an anthology or a sketch show. In this episode, it features a "Weird Al" song, extolling the glory of Weasel Stomping Day. Technically, the appearance of the song on the show is not the genesis of the idea. Mr. Yankovic wrote the song and released it on his album "Straight Outta Lynwood," and Seth Green and the other brilliant minds behind Robot Chicken created a music video for the song which was latter added to an episode of the show. However, I'm sure there are plenty of people who hadn't heard it before this show. Plus, I don't have a Top 11 Fictional Holidays from Songs. Anyway, during the song, written in the style of Christmas Carols of the '60s, people are adorned in Viking hats and boots. Kids and parents alike are encouraged to stomp on any and all weasels. To draw them in, one might spread mayo on the lawn. "It's tradition, that makes it okay."

Final Thoughts

There are all sorts of different holidays that have been manufactured for TV shows at all times of year. Sometimes a holiday episode is wholesome and sometimes it is played for laughs. Who doesn't love a holiday episode? I left several great fictional holidays of my list so I'm sure you have one that you wish I'd included on the list. Please let me know in the comments below. Thanks!