Humbug Day

What the day is

Humbug Day is observed on December 21. It exists to let people admit that the run-up to the holidays is not uniformly wonderful, a few days before they are expected to pretend otherwise.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented. The word is another matter.

Humbug is recorded from the middle of the eighteenth century, roughly a hundred years before Dickens, appearing first as student slang for a hoax or a piece of deception. Where it came from beyond that is genuinely unknown, and lexicographers have never settled it. Its modern sense was fixed permanently in 1843 by one character in A Christmas Carol, to the point that most people now assume Dickens coined it.

Worth noting is what Scrooge actually means by the word. He is not saying the holiday is unpleasant. He is calling it a fraud, a performance of goodwill by people who spend the rest of the year behaving otherwise, which is a sharper complaint than the grumbling the word now covers.

The stress the day acknowledges is real and measurable. Surveys taken through December consistently find a large share of people reporting elevated stress, with the drivers named most often being money, time pressure and family obligation rather than anything about the season itself.

The date matters too. December 21 is on or beside the solstice, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, and low winter light genuinely affects mood for some people. Bright light exposure in the morning is among the better-evidenced responses to that.

The story the day borrows from is ultimately not on the side of humbug. Scrooge's complaint is treated as understandable and then answered.

How to take part

• Say the thing about the holidays you have been suppressing, to someone who will laugh.
• Cancel one obligation you agreed to and did not want.
• Set a spending limit and tell people about it, which removes most of the pressure.
• Get outside in daylight, ideally in the morning. The solstice week is the hardest of the year for it.
• Reread A Christmas Carol, which is shorter and considerably sharper than its adaptations.