Popcorn is one of the most popular snacks in the United States and American’s typically enjoy around 13 billion quarts of popcorn a year, more than any other country around the world and the popcorn consumption in America typically increases around 5% every year! Therefore, this popular popping snack deserves its own national holiday every January 19th! January 19th is National Popcorn Day, and this annual celebration is a great way to celebrate this time-honored snack with a fun popcorn movie night or snack on your favorite flavor of gourmet popcorn. National Popcorn Day became a national holiday around 2014 and people everywhere have been celebrating sweet and savory popcorn ever since.
Who made National Popcorn Day a national holiday and exactly when it because a yummy national holiday is unknown. Some people say National Popcorn Day started because of the Super Bowl, and popcorn is such a fan favorite snack among Super Bowl spectators and fan. National Popcorn Day has shown up throughout American history on different days. An ad in the High Point Enterprise from the 1970’s stated National Popcorn Day was on October 24th.
Magazines in the 1980’s, states National Popcorn Day is actually on January 31st and not the 19th. From January 19th, 1980 on the date of National Popcorn Day always seemed to land on the same day as the Super Bowl. But finally, on January 19th in 2003 a newspaper stated it was National Popcorn Day, and the date has stuck ever since!
National Popcorn Month popped into existence in October originally because October corresponds with the harvest of popcorn kernels, but it only lasted one year! National Popcorn Month in October was officially announced in 1999 by Dan Glickman, Americas Secretary of Agriculture at the time. Today, October is not observed as National Popcorn Month because proclamations like the one made by Dan Glickman in 1999 are only valid for the year they are made. This means technically October in 1999 was the first and last official popcorn month in current history, however, since we love popcorn so much, we still love to celebrate!
If you are celebrating National Popcorn Day on January 19th, or all of October, there are so many fun ways you can make your popcorn celebration pop! The best way to celebrate National Popcorn Day is to grab your favorite flavor of popcorn and enjoy it with friends and family. You could grab a couple of friends and decorate with popcorn garland made from prepped popcorn and colorful corn on the cob! The best corn to use as corn on the cob decorations like you would typically see on a Thanksgiving table is flint corn and dent corn! These color corn on the cobs are typically not the best for eating but they are great for enjoying visually. Flint corn is especially colorful and comes in popcorn kernels in the iconic red, yellow, and orange! Dent corn is typically grown as animal feed and gets hard when it is dried out, dent corn can be great for making fun musical instrument crafts to celebrate National Popcorn Day with!
Once you have decorated for National Popcorn Day and created some fun art and crafts with family and friends, it is time to break out the snacks! There is a lot of fun yummy recipes for popcorn can make your National Popcorn Day on January 19th even more special! You can make sweet or savory popcorn trail mix, tasty popcorn snowballs using your favorite gourmet popcorn, and even just put your favorite popcorn in a bowl and enjoy it the good old-fashioned way! However, you plan to celebrate National Popcorn Day, we hope you get to enjoy your favorite Popped! Republic's flavors of popcorn all day long!
