Time for kids to head back to school after a fun summer but did you know there are all sorts of other reasons to celebrate in August? Here’s a fun list of days to celebrate plus simple and not so simple ways to take advantage of the final month of summer!
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August Party Ideas
As I was doing research for this post and thinking the only thing really happening in August is kids going back to school, I realized I am very very wrong. There are so many fun days to celebrate in August I had no idea existed.
So here’s to enjoying the final month of summer because the weather is beautiful an there are plenty of reasons to celebrate, not just because summer vacation is over.
August 1 – National Girlfriends Day
Is there any better excuse to have a girls night than National Girlfriends Day? Plus, it’s Saturday night this year so invite those friends over or out and just enjoy time with your favorite girlfriends.
If you need some ideas for ways to celebrate I recommend a game night with one of my favorite group board games, watching Gilmore Girls to get ready for the fall (with Gilmore Girls bingo of course), a make your own s’mores night (one of my favorite summer party themes), or a bedazzling craft night.
August 2 – National Sisters Day
Call your sister. Go out with your sister. Do anything you want with your sisters. I personally will be watching Voicemails for Isabelle and making these ice cream dessert nachos with my sister again.
Don’t have sisters or can’t do something with them? It’s also National Friendship Day, so you could easily do something with your friends instead! Pretty much anything goes on friendship day as long as you’re doing it with friends or even just making new friends counts too!
August 3 – National Watermelon Day
Oh the best summer fruit gets its own day! Grab some fresh watermelon and have a watermelon seed spitting contest or make delicious watermelon recipes to enjoy together like our watermelon mint salad or watermelon slushies.
Or you could go to the pool with a watermelon ball and play swimming pool games, while enjoying some refreshing chilled watermelon of course!
August 4 – National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day
Make chocolate chip cookies (this large batch chocolate chip cookie recipe is the best by the way). Enjoy them with your family and friends or take them to neighbors or other people who might need a chocolate chip cookie in their life.
Or do a who makes the best chocolate chip challenge and invite everyone to bring over a couple of chocolate chip cookies from their favorite local bakery. Taste them all together and decide who has the best.
Or you setup a make your own ice cream cookie sandwich bar and watch an outdoor movie while everyone enjoys cookie sandwiches. They’re always a hit.
August 5 – National Blogger Day
Spend the day supporting your favorite bloggers whether you make recipes from your favorite food bloggers, try out kids activities from parenting bloggers, or try out a new board game recommended by yours truly.
Bloggers are some of the hardest working people out there – I should know, this is easily the hardest gig I’ve ever had – and this would be a great time to support the ones giving you content for free!
If you need more recommendations, a few easy ways to support them is simply by rating recipes, liking and sharing things you see on social media, and literally just sending a kind comment or note to the ones you read and use regularly.
August 6 – National Root Beer Float Day
Meet friends at a local soda shop or ice cream place where you can enjoy root beer floats together. Or assign everyone a part of the float and invite them to come over to make them with you at home!
Or make it a test for the best night and buy a bunch of different brands of root beer and ice cream, try out different combinations to figure out which one is really the best. Make sure there’s a scorecard and everything!
August 7 – National Water Balloon Day
Grab some water balloons and some friends and host a day filled with water balloon games! This one falls on a Friday so you could do it during the day or have people come over after work because everyone knows it’s still hot enough for water balloons after the workday is over!
I highly recommend using reusable water balloons so no one has to pick up all of the little pieces but any water balloons work. And if you want to play just one (and not a bunch of water games), ultimate water balloon really is the best!
August 8 – International Cat Day
I’m personally allergic to cats so for me this celebration would look like watching cat videos, reading Dungeon Crawler Carl with his funny sidekick Donut the cat, and pretending that I can snuggle up with cats without sneezing.
For everyone else, spend this one enjoying all the fluffy felines in your life. Meet up for lunch at a cat cafe, see who can find the funniest cat videos, or literally just spend time with cats. Have a movie night that’s all about cats like Garfield or Homeward Bound or Milo and Otis. It’s a great chance to introduce your family to the classics.
Not into cats? August 8th is also National Pickleball Day and National Garage Sale Day – two things I can really get behind!
August 9 – National Book Lovers Day
Host a book club or just invite your friends over to talk about your favorite books. You could even fill out book bingo cards for the fall if you want. If you’re really ambitious, plan a day long book retreat with all sorts of bookish gifts, games, and fun.
Or meet up with some friends at your local bookstore and just browse, buy, and be awed by all of the books you want to read but probably never will.
Or get even more creative and have a book exchange night, a book basket swap, or just play a bookish game with your book besties. Anything you’d do for a book club, National Book Lovers Day makes a great excuse to do it.
August 10 – National S’mores Day
Enjoy s’mores in one way or another. Meet up with friends to make a bonfire to cook your own s’mores and just enjoy the outdoors. You could setup your very own s’mores bar as long as it’s not too hot that the chocolate will immediately melt. Oh and don’t forget to bring the gourmet s’mores toppings so people can try things other than just the standard chocolate and marshmallows.
Or if you can’t make an outdoor fire, try one of these little s’mores kits where you can make your own inside. Or skip the s’mores altogether and just make a s’mores treat, we have plenty of recipes that give you the taste of s’mores without the actual fire.
August 11 – National Play in the Sand Day
Meet friends for a sand day. It could be at an actual ocean, a lake with a beach, or even just somewhere that has sand like a local park if you have kids.
Or skip going somewhere and have everyone come over to do a sand art project together. There are so many pretty sand art projects that would make great kids crafts or even a girls night craft!
Make it even more fun by serving up these sand pudding buckets or this beach cake that’s covered in sand!
August 12 – Baseball Fans Day
Meet up with friends or take your own family to a local baseball game. It could be a Little League game or a Major League Baseball game, either one can be just as fun just celebrating your love of the sport.
Or plan your own baseball game at a local field, Sandlot style, where everyone shows up with a glove and just plays. Or skip the baseball and play kickball instead, it’s a little more accessible to everyone!
Don’t want to actually play baseball? Have a baseball themed movie night where you watch something like The Sandlot, A League of Their Own, or Rookie of the Year. Grab some baseball suckers and Cracker Jack to make it feel like going to the ball field!
August 13 – Family Fun Month
There’s not a lot going on for August 13th so it’s the perfect time to celebrate August being Family Fun month! Pick something that the entire family thinks is fun and do it together on August 13th! Or let everyone choose something and make an entire day out of it!
Or if your kids are already back in school and you can’t do a full day, grab some of these board games for kids and just do a family game night while you eat dinner! It’s just about having fun as a family!
August 14 – Happiness Happens Month
Happiness Happens month was started by the Secret Society of Happy People as a way to literally just celebrate being happy. So pick something or an entire day of things that make you happy and do them.
Or meet up with people that make you happy. Or eat food (like chocolate lava cake) that makes you happy. I put this on a Friday so that you could start the weekend with a little or a lot of happy!
Want to turn it into an actual party or girls night? Invite people over and have them bring a snack to share that makes them happy and just spend the night sharing silly little things that make people happy. The sillier seeming the better.
For me that might mean a pizza loaf right out of the oven, a mint mojito mocktail with fresh mint from my garden, and playing ridiculous games like ponies with my friends.
August 15 – National Relaxation Day
Relax, don’t do it. Are you envisioning Zoolander now? Every time single I hear the word relax.
Any way, this is literally a day designed around relaxing, and I highly recommend you take advantage of it. Sleep in, read a book, take a bath, go to a spa if that’ll help you relax. Just take things easy and give yourself a break for the day.
Oh and if you have people to take care of, take it easy with them too. Order pizza (or make this super simple homemade pizza dough), go see a movie, or just relax the rules for the day so there’s less stress and more relaxing.
August 16 – National Roller Coaster Day
Go find a roller coaster to ride, period. Hit an amusement park, a local festival or fair, or even just a hill that feels like a roller coaster.
This is even more fun if you do it with friends or family who you enjoy standing in line and riding coasters with.
August 17 – National Thrift Shop Day
Meet up with friends at a local thrift shop and each of you pick out something else for someone to wear then go to dinner wearing it. Or do a thrift shop scavenger hunt to see who can find the best things. Or a thrift store date night, same idea but for a date instead of a girls night!
Or make it a DIY day and everyone choose something from the thrift store and turn it into a craft like we did with these sweater pumpkins.
Or give each of your kids five dollars and they have to buy something for someone else in the family that they think they’ll love. It’s like a secondhand scavenger hunt but for somebody else!
Or last but not least (can you tell I like thrift stores), turn this one around and go through an area in your house and come up with things you can donate to your local thrift store.
August 18 – National Couple’s Day
Get a baby-sitter (if you need one) and spend the day doing things you don’t get to do very often. Make plans for the fall. Go to dinner where you get to eat your food hot. Go see a movie that isn’t kid-friendly. Go shopping for something at a store with breakable things.
Or just plan a date night for after the kids are in bed and do something together you’ve never tried before. The entire goal is to make today about you as a couple, not you as parents. If you need some date night ideas, these are some of our favorites!
August 19 – World Photography Day
Meet up with friends to do a ridiculous photo shoot that is designed more to make you howl with laughter when you see the photos then something you’ll hang on the wall.
Get family photos done somewhere with beautiful summer scenery. Go on a photo scavenger hunt. Recreate old family photos together.
Go on a photography field trip in your local city trying to find the best places to take photos together. Or do a guided photography tour where you actually learn how to take photos while touring an area.
Or sign up for a photography class to get better at using your camera whether it’s a real camera or a phone one, figure out how to capture those moments better!
Or lastly, go to an art museum or gallery where you can enjoy local photographers’ work. There are so many amazing ways to appreciate photography, you can definitely get creative with this one!
August 20 – National Radio Day
Skip Apple Music and Spotift and listen to the radio all day. Make it fun by playing name that tune when you hear songs come on the radio.
Teach your kids all about the radio and how we all had to sit and wait for our favorite songs to come up – maybe introduce them to Casey Kasem’s countdown.
August 21 – National Senior Citizens Day
Spend the day either with or talking to your favorite senior citizens. Plan lunch with your grandparents, write letters or send pictures to family members you don’t get to see very often, make treats and take them to senior citizens in your local community.
If you plan ahead enough, you could even likely volunteer at a senior citizens community center. I know our local ones regularly appreciate visitors to come in and do things like sing songs, play games, and more.
August 22 – National Eat a Peach Day
Millions of peaches, peaches for everyone on National Eat a Peach Day. Go get fresh peaches at a local farmers market and turn them into everything from peach cake to peach cobbler.
Or have everyone bring a peach dessert or snack to share – I recommend these peach crostini – for a simple girls night idea.
Or go see if there is somewhere you can pick fresh peaches. You may need to learn how to can them too but picking them is the fun part!
August 23 – Cheap Flight Day
Get that girls trip out of the group chat and book the flights. Cheap Flight Day has historically been one of the cheapest days to book flights (not sure how true that is but the internet says so), so make your travel plans and be ready to book flights when August 23rd comes around!
You could even make a date out of it and instead of planning the trips ahead of time, see where you can find the cheapest flights and plan the trip after you book the flights!
August 24 – National Wellness Month
Meet up with friends on this Sunday in August to try out some sort of new wellness activity like goat yoga or trampoline aerobics or even just hiking a new trail.
Or if you want to do more personal wellness, try out a new workout at home, these monster protein balls recipe, or even just a new meditation routine. All of August is wellness month but Sunday seemed like a great time to really incorporate it this month!
August 25 – National Banana Split Day
Make homemade banana splits, this no-bake banana split cake, or really just anything with ice cream and bananas.
Or meet up with friends at a local ice cream shop, make sure they have banana splits on the menu, and split one with your friends!
August 26 – National Dog Day
We already celebrated International Cat Day in August so naturally I had to include National Dog Day for man’s best friend!
Meet up with friends at a dog park for a dog (and dog parent) playdate, invite friends and their pups over for a pup party complete with a pup cake and lots of puppy fun.
Go do puppy yoga or go to a shelter and walk dogs if you don’t have one of your own. Or watch videos or a documentary on amazing dogs. There are really so many fun ways to celebrate the pups in your life!
August 27 – World Rock Paper Scissors Day
Go on a rock paper scissors date where whoever wins gets to choose each part or the date – dinner, activity, dessert. Or do the same thing with your girlfriends or kids and the winner of each round gets to choose!
Or try a rock paper scissors gift exchange but with fall favorite things instead! Or play field day games that incorporate rock paper scissors like the one where you have to hop through hula hoops until you meet someone then play them in rock paper scissors.
August 28 – National Thoughtful Day
Make it a be as thoughtful as possible day with your family. See who can be the most thoughtful without making it a competition that ruins the entire point.
Send thoughtful notes to friends, do kind things for strangers, and think about other people when you’re making decisions on things like what will your spouse like for dinner. Or what’s something you could do for a friend who is having a hard time.
These are all things we probably should do all the time but an entire day reminding us to be thoughtful never hurts! If you need ideas, these random acts of kindness cards are a great way to start!
August 29 – National Sports Day
It’s another chance to get together to do your favorite sports with your favorite people. Meet up with a friend for some pickleball, take a family field trip to a local miniature golf course, or even see if your neighbors wanted to play a little neighborhood kickball.
Or take it out and meet up with friends to cheer on your local high school football team, meet up for a night of fun at Top Golf, or sign up for a local sports league that you’ve been wanting to try.
Or if you want something easier to do at home, have an afternoon filled with these sports games with balls – they incorporate sport skills without playing actual sports!
August 30 – National Beach Day
Go to a beach. Make plans to go to a beach. Make these pool party cookies that look like they have a beach. Do a beach scavenger hunt at home if you can’t get to the beach.
It’s the last real weekend before summer is over so take advantage of it and get as close to a beach as possible!
August 31 – National Eat Outside day
Grab dinner and take it to a park to enjoy while the kids play. Or meet up with other mom friends for a picnic at the park.
Or just go in your own backyard and enjoy dinner while watching the sun set and fireflies start to dance.
If you need some outdoor eating options, these are some of my personal favorites that handle heat and outdoors well!
Oh and I know I mentioned it but didn’t really put a specific day to it but back to school is obviously happening for most kids in August or early September.
Setup one of these fun back to school ideas for the kids (mine love the back to school scavenger hunt) and then once they’re in school, meet up with your favorite mom friends to celebrate surviving the summer again!
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