Poor April – this year, it’s the month without a holiday. In the spirit of my previous post about the evolution of personally significant holidays, I took a look at the National Days calendar, an online list of the national and international designations for particular days, weeks, and months. I can now confidently assure you, April has absolutely no shortage of days to celebrate.

While I’m personally inclined to stick with the food-related days (National Burrito Day! National Cheese Fondue Day! National Pineapple Upside Down Cake Day!), there are so many outdoor-focused ones. Certainly we don’t need an excuse to go outside and enjoy the changing weather, but I think it’s fun to use this particular calendar to focus some of those outdoor activities; after all, it can’t all be yard clean-up or I’ll head back inside for a few more weeks.

A few to consider:

April 3 – National Find a Rainbow Day. As April showers are reputed to bring May flowers, this probably won’t be super-hard. And there’s always the trusty garden hose.

April 7 – National No Housework Day. A personal favorite – we should celebrate this one often! It’s the middle of the week, so go outside and get some fresh air.

April 14 – National Gardening Day. I love that there are people who enjoy gardening and I hope to become one someday. My daughter is planting a tea garden this year so she can brew her own cuppa; here’s a shout out to all of you that are doing the same, or growing your own vegetables and herbs.  

April 17 – International Bat Appreciation Day. There are over 1,400 species of bats found in nearly every climate in the world. In addition to eating their body weight in insects nightly, bats are pollinators for avocados, bananas, mangoes, nuts, figs, cacao, and more. Conservation groups across the globe are working to save bats from diseases and erosion of habitat.

April 22 – Earth Day. Earth Day was started in 1970 as a way to force environmental issues onto the national political agenda. Since then the goal of raising awareness of climate change and global environmental issues has become even more important.

April 23 – National Picnic Day. A perfect day to pack up your lunch and dine al fresco, or enjoy an outdoor dinner.  

30 – Arbor Day. This internationally recognized day is dedicated to planting trees for conservation and forestation.

There you go – lots of reasons to get outside and make a holiday of it.