When to Celebrate? What to Celebrate? How to Celebrate?
Sometimes, we need a solid reason to go to the boss and convince them that the team needs an hour to sing, dance, quiz, or drink together. Perhaps you want to raise money for charity or celebrate a culture.
We’ve created a helpful guide to the key dates to schedule your office celebrations to help get your boss on your side.
We see companies participate in events for a whole range of reasons. The obvious are, of course, Christmas Parties, End-of-Quarter Parties, and Summer Parties.
However, many other celebrations, such as Halloween, Bonfire Night, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Independence Day, are just as popular.
Not all events need a whole company celebration; we often see smaller groups (like departments or management teams) book activities for Leaving Parties, Baby Showers and Birthdays.
So, to make things super simple for all the office event planners, we’ve created a detailed list of all the key dates to celebrate.
Please note that we try to keep this page current each year, but please check the dates.
JANUARY
- New Year’s Day (1st January)
- Blue Monday (20th January 2025) – trust us, everyone will need cheering up!
- Lunar New Year (29th January 2025)
FEBRUARY
- Valentine’s Day (14th February)
- Ramadan begins (28th February 2025)
MARCH
- Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day (4th March 2025)
- Start of Lent or Ash Wednesday (5th March 2025)
- International Women’s Day (8th March)
- Commonwealth Day (13th March)
- St Patrick’s Day (17th March)
- Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day (21st March 2025)
- Ramadan ends (30th March 2025)
APRIL
- Lent ends (17th April 2025)
- Easter Sunday (20th April 2025)
MAY
- Eurovision Song Contest (13th May 2024)
JUNE
- Pride Month (throughout June)—pick a date to celebrate or participate in a range of activities.
JULY
- Independence Day (4th July)
- FIFA Women’s World Cup starts (20th July 2024)
AUGUST
- Yorkshire Day (1st August)
- Summer Bank Holiday (28th August 2024) is the last bank holiday in England and Wales before Christmas!
- Rugby Championship (10th August – 28th September 2024)
SEPTEMBER
- Labor Day USA (4th September)
- 189th Oktoberfest (21st September to 6th October, 2024)
OCTOBER
- Halloween (31st October)
NOVEMBER
- Bonfire Night (5th November)
- Thanksgiving USA (23rd November)
DECEMBER
- Hanukkah begins (7th December)
- Christmas Day (25th December) – maybe don’t celebrate this one on the day… we doubt anyone would turn up!
- New Year’s Eve (31st December)
2026
FIFA World Cup, Canada, Mexico and USA
11th June to 19th July 19, 2026
The above list is packed full of key British dates that companies should celebrate, regardless of their team size.
Of course, the list may differ slightly between companies, especially large multinationals. We’ve included some of the more well-known International holidays, such as Independence Day and Lunar New Year.
However, if a company has a significant number of employees from a geographical location, they should definitely research some key dates/holidays and mark the occasion, too.
You may even have more company-specific dates that need to be added (e.g., the date you were founded, anniversary celebrations, employee celebrations, etc.).
And if your boss still isn’t keen, send them our way, and we’ll do the persuading for you!
Reach us at i[email protected] or call 01235 634744.