It fascinates me that we, as a collective species, can summon entire traditions out of thin air. Someone somewhere declares a date, gives it a name, and suddenly, people across the world are making cupcakes, creating hashtags, and designing commemorative t-shirts.
Oh joy, oh glory, oh praise of rapture. Hang on to your hats, kids, it is International Wombat Day! I didn't think it would ever arrive, you know, that anticipation. We all felt it more when we were kids, of course. That is who the day is really for, the kids. Well, the kids and the wombats they are involved as well. However, the kids are the ones who truly love this time of year and this day in particular.
I remember it clearly, the first time I understood what was happening. When you are very young, there is just a ton of activity with friends and family coming over all day, and the feasting and the parties. As a toddler, it is all a blur. Then, as you get a little older, the reality of the day comes into focus. Suddenly, the activities and the feasting all make sense, and you really get caught up in the whole thing.
My first clear memory of International Wombat Day was of my dad and me in the Ford Fairmont, driving to Klossen’s Jewelers downtown. Dad wanted me to help him pick out an International Wombat Day gift for Mom. He loved this day. He was more of a kid than the kids. Decorating the Wombat Bush, putting out the Wombat Brew, the seasonal beer that Budweiser made especially for International Wombat Day. He kept the Wombat carol books in a pile by the door, ready in a snap if the crowd decided to sing Wombat carols through the neighborhood. And we did. We visited, ate, sang, laughed, and exchanged gifts. International Wombat Day was the holiday around my house growing up.
The Grown-Up Wombat
Times are different now. Friends come and go, members of my family have gone on to their eternal rest, and life pulls your attention this way and that. I fully admit that in years past, I have let International Wombat Day slide by. But not this year. This year I am doing it up right. The Wombat Bush is up and decorated with popcorn strings and wine corks. The album Conway Twitty’s Best Wombat Carols is on the turntable. The Wombat Brew is chilling in the fridge, and the day’s activities are planned down to the second. I have so much fun and frivolity, so much food, and Wombat joy ready to go. I am shaking with excitement. I just love this holiday so much.
The Making of a Holiday
I wonder, is that all it takes to create a day, a branded day? I recall that when I was growing up, McDonald’s celebrated McFebruary. They took the entire month of February and filled it with activities and food specials. They even had a jingle, which, weirdly, I remember to this very day. It was wonderful, and then it just went away.
But at some point, in a meeting room in a city with tall buildings and dripping with greed, the idea of McFebruary was born. So, why can't I just claim International Wombat Day as a holiday and make it so? Brands do it, do they not?
The Science of the Made-Up Holiday
It fascinates me that we, as a collective species, can summon entire traditions out of thin air. Someone somewhere declares a date, gives it a name, and suddenly, people across the world are making cupcakes, creating hashtags, and designing commemorative t-shirts. It is as if the human brain has a button labeled celebrate and all you have to do is press it with enough confidence.
Take “National Donut Day.” It started as a small fundraiser during the Great Depression, but today it feels ancient, as if cavemen once offered glazed rings to the gods. Then there is “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” a joke between two friends that somehow became a global ritual of bad accents and eye patches. Each one began as a spark of nonsense and grew into something that people genuinely look forward to.
And once the celebration starts, we behave as though it has always been there. We tell stories about how our family has always made donut towers on that day, or how our office never misses a chance to shout “Arrr” in the break room. In less than a generation, an idea that did not exist becomes nostalgia.
That is the strange alchemy of culture. You take an empty space, fill it with joy, and then backfill the history. Once enough people feel something together, it no longer matters where it came from. It is real because we decided it was real.
That may be what draws me to International Wombat Day. It is a blank canvas for belonging. There are no rules, no official colors, no hymns or greeting cards yet, only the pure potential to make something special. I can string popcorn on the Wombat Bush and pour a glass of Wombat Brew, and in that moment, I am not pretending. I am participating in the creation of something. I am helping it exist.
The truth is, we do this all the time. Every inside joke, every annual barbecue, every weird family saying is a little made-up holiday. Meaning is not found; it is manufactured through repetition and emotion. If you repeat it long enough, even the silliest tradition starts to feel sacred.
And that, I think, is the most comforting part of this ridiculous experiment. If something as absurd as International Wombat Day can begin to feel real in my own home, maybe the things that feel real to us now were once just as absurd. Maybe all our cherished traditions were invented by someone with a sense of humor and a free afternoon.
How Brands Do the Same Thing
The more I think about it, the more I realize brands have been doing this kind of thing for years. They are the master architects of our modern myth calendar. Somewhere in a marketing meeting, probably right now, someone is pitching an idea that begins, “What if we created a day around it?” and a room full of adults nods with the seriousness of priests planning a ceremony.
And they are not wrong. It works. “National Coffee Day” fills every cup in America. “Prime Day” turns mid-July into a two-day retail pilgrimage. “The McRib is Back” has more emotional pull than most political campaigns. These are not just promotions; they are events.
What is wild is how completely we buy in. We rearrange our schedules, stand in line, and post about it online as though the date were etched in history. We even correct people who do not know the “proper way” to celebrate. It is marketing that has crossed over into mythology.
Brands understand something primal about us. They know that we do not simply consume things; we perform them. We want our purchases to feel like participation, our habits to feel like belonging. So they wrap their products in ritual. They give us songs, slogans, mascots, limited editions, countdowns, and inside jokes. They give us reasons to wait, to anticipate, to remember.
And before long, the repetition becomes tradition. You might say, “We always get Shamrock Shakes in March,” or “My dad never misses the Black Friday sale at that store.” Somewhere along the way, it stops being marketing and starts being memory.
That is the same magic I feel with International Wombat Day. It is completely fabricated, yet the excitement feels authentic. Because it is not about the wombats or the beer or even the bush with the popcorn strings, it is about the small thrill of shared meaning.
Maybe the best brands are not selling products at all. Maybe they are selling little pockets of shared imagination, invitations to believe in something together, even if it started as nonsense in a meeting room with bad coffee.
What We’re Really Celebrating
When I strip away all the decorations, the carols, and the snacks, what I love most about International Wombat Day is not the wombats at all. It is the people. The togetherness. The shared decision to treat a random date like something sacred. We do not need much to make meaning out of a story, a symbol, or a reason to show up. The wombat just gives us a shape to pour it into.
It is funny, though, how powerful that can be. Give people a ritual and they will build a memory. Give them a name for that memory, and they will defend it like family. After a while, it is no longer pretend. It becomes a chapter in our personal mythology.
When I think about my childhood memories of real holidays, the glittering tree, the sound of laughter from the kitchen, and my dad’s amazing singing, I realize it was never about the official reason for the day. It was about the rhythm. The predictability. The comfort of knowing that, at least for a few hours, the world was in agreement about something.
That is what makes any celebration feel real. Not the wombat, not the logo, not the slogan. The agreement. We all silently decide, “This matters.” We decide that this food, this color, this phrase, this scent, this sound means something. And once enough of us agree, it does.
Brands understand this more deeply than they like to admit. They know we are not really loyal to the product; we are loyal to the ritual that surrounds it. The first sip of a pumpkin spice latte is not about coffee. It is about the change of season, the permission to slow down, the warm little hit of belonging. The red holiday cup is not just a cup. It is a signal: it is time to gather, time to remember, time to care.
But underneath all of that is something even older. Before advertising, before brands, before mass communication, people invented festivals and ceremonies for the same reason. We cannot help it. The human brain does not like unmarked time. We fill the calendar with meaning because we need the rhythm. Without it, the days blur into a gray hallway of nothing in particular.
International Wombat Day is absurd, yes, but maybe absurdity is the purest expression of the instinct. We do not celebrate because it makes sense. We celebrate because it connects us. It gives us something to look forward to, something to remember, and something to laugh about later.
And that laughter, that tiny burst of shared joy, might be the most real thing we ever make.
The Danger (and Genius) of Manufactured Meaning
The more I think about it, the more I see that the very thing that makes International Wombat Day so delightful is also what makes it a little unsettling. We are so good at building meaning that we will believe almost anything if it comes with the right song and limited-edition packaging.
This is not entirely our fault. Meaning feels good. Belonging feels better. And the people who make a living from attention know that. Somewhere right now, a team of very smart, very caffeinated people is trying to design the next emotional shortcut. They are searching for that perfect combination of color, phrasing, and nostalgia that will make millions of people feel something at the same time.
It works because we want it to. We crave significance. We want to be told, “This is the day.” “This is the thing.” “This matters.” It makes the world a little less random. It lets us feel part of a story that was written before we got here.
But here is the trick: once meaning can be manufactured, it can be sold. And once it can be sold, it stops belonging to us. The rituals that once pulled people together can start to pull wallets open instead.
That is the dark twin of the Wombat spirit. The same mechanics that build connection can also build dependence. We start to confuse the feeling for the thing that triggered it. We start to believe that the cup creates the comfort, that the shoe creates the confidence, that the brand creates the belonging.
Still, I cannot help but admire the genius of it. Humans have always done this, after all. The cathedrals, the flags, the sports teams, the cults of personality, all built on the same scaffolding of shared imagination. The only difference now is that we have turned it into an industry.
Maybe that is what makes International Wombat Day feel oddly honest to me. It does not pretend to be ancient or sacred. It is openly ridiculous, openly made up. Yet somehow, in its absurdity, it tells the truth. Everything we love is a little bit made up. The only question is who is doing the making.
The Takeaway
So here I am. The lights on the Wombat Bush are twinkling, the popcorn strings sag a little, and the last bottle of Wombat Brew is sweating on the table beside me. The record has reached the end of Conway Twitty’s Best Wombat Carols again, that slow crackle of static between songs filling the room. I should probably turn it off, but I like that sound. It feels like a heartbeat.
I think about how easy it was to make this day exist. One idea, a few decorations, some enthusiasm, and a story to tell, that’s all it took. I could send a few texts, and next year my friends might celebrate too. If I give it five years, there might be hashtags, sweaters, maybe even a limited-edition beer can. All from nothing.
And that is what makes it wonderful. Meaning does not have to be assigned from above. It does not need history or approval or a place on an official calendar. It only needs participation. If enough of us choose to care, then caring becomes real.
That is the great secret hiding inside every holiday, every brand, every shared story. Nothing becomes sacred until someone decides it is. Every symbol starts as an inside joke, every ritual as an experiment. The difference between a gimmick and a tradition is simply repetition mixed with love.
So yes, I will keep celebrating International Wombat Day. Not because it is old or official or important, but because it reminds me that I get to make things matter. That we all do.
And if somewhere out there, in a boardroom or a basement, someone else is making something up today, another story, another symbol, another reason to gather, I hope they do it with joy because the world could always use one more excuse to sing.
At ThoughtLab, that is exactly what we study, build, and celebrate: the ways stories, symbols, and small shared moments turn into ecosystems of meaning. We help brands craft the kind of connection that feels real because it is real, built from human emotion, not empty noise. If a single idea like International Wombat Day can bring people together, imagine what a truly intentional story can do.
