This is for those of you who woke up this morning saying, “At last! National Pigs-in-a-Blanket-Day has arrived!” For those of you poor, benighted readers, this is your day to titillate your tastebuds. Or not. I have known about Pigs-in-a-Blanket most of my adult life. It was made more widely known when Irma S. Rombauer published the 1957 issue of “The Joy of Cooking.”

This national day of celebration emerged in the mid 1990’s. It may have emerged about the time Y2K-2000 bludgeoned its malaise into the forefront — muting cultural comfort, interfering with this noble entry. Nobody knows. It is thought that the concept of Pigs-in-a-Blanket has been around in the US since the earliest settlers. The 1957 Betty Crocker Cookbook For Boys and Girls lists the recipe for it, but even that took another forty or so years to catch on. You can find Pigs-in-a-Blanket now in your local Publix supermarket.

Now Pigs-in-a-Blanket has its own National holiday, clearly not on the same scale as Memorial Day or Labor Day, but still, it is called, well, a “national holiday.” Go figure. And why not? With all the pain of politics, and civic chaos, we need a little levity. Food is a ready companion for almost any celebration. So there you have it. Have a Pigs-in-a-Blanket cooking contest; set up an eating contest for whoever eats the most Pigs-in-a-Blanket. Or as I bemoan, most citizens will just ignore it.

Yet and still, today’s holiday is a clever way to spend the day. Fun does not always need to be organized and advertised. While I was writing this, I took a break, sitting on the front porch. Above the chatter and chirping of birds, I heard laughter. Beyond the saplings in the edge of our yard, I saw neighbor children playing. They were having the time of their life! Joyfully, they played, not organized, but not with expensive, complex toys; just running, playing, and laughing.

National Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day does not call for parades, school holidays, or a flag on your porch. But it is playful. In an article in Psychology Today, Hara Estroff Marano wrote, Play appears to allow our brains to exercise their very flexibility, to maintain and even perhaps renew the neural connections that embody our human potential to adapt, to meet any possible set of environmental conditions. So have fun playing! Exercise your brain having fun! Carpe diem!

©Copyright Willis H. Moore 2026