Egg Nog Day

Farther Along / flickr.com / 2014 / CC BY 2.0

Egg nog day is the 24th of December.

Nobody really needs a reminder to have egg nog at this time of year, but perhaps it’s a reminder to egg nog lovers to get their fill for the year while you still can procure it easily from the stores.

A few companies are now making and selling egg nog year round, trying to encourage us to make more days throughout the year into egg nog days, but in many areas, it still only appears in the stores heading into December.

For those who hate egg nog and try to avoid it at Christmas, year-round egg nog would probably be a nightmare — for them, bad enough that someone has already proclaimed a whole day officially egg nog day!

Given that Christmas has become for kiddies (so we’re told, anyway), maybe it’s not such a bad idea to make this a day, or at least an evening, for the grown-ups. After all the rushing around on the 24th is done, the parents can subtly spike their glasses of egg nog with a good old glug of something that the kids aren’t allowed to have, and reclaim a bit of something for themselves.

Given the parlous state of mass food safety these days, it’s no surprise that many people are now getting sick from drinking a raw egg concoction. If you are tempted to make your own egg nog, be sure to use pasteurized eggs such as you can get liquid in a carton, or whole shell pasteurized eggs, or use a recipe that involves heating the eggs just enough to pasteurize them yourself. See this advice from the US Department of Health. And no, the booze in egg nog is not enough to “kill anything.”

Egg nog is typically very high in fat and calories. See our Skinny Egg Nog recipe to save a few calories at this crucial time in the holidays.

#EggNogDay

History

In 2004, Emily Nunn of the Chicago Tribune included “Egg Nog Day” in a list of “silly food holidays” she compiled. “December…. Date Nut Bread Day (22), Egg Nog Day (24), Bicarbonate of Soda Day (30)…” ^[1]Nunn, Emily. Surrender to never-ending glut of silly food holidays. Chicago Tribune. Reprinted in: Kerrville Daily Times. Kerrville, Texas. 22 Sep 2004. Page 3C. Col 1.