Grandparents Day in UK 2024

Grandparents Day has its roots in Poland, where in 1964 Grandma’s Day was celebrated for the first time. Very soon after that the Grandpa’s Day was celebrated and the dates, respectively 21st and 22nd January, for these holidays have been established. It took thirteen years for these holidays to cross the Atlantic and become a part of American tradition. The Grandparents’ Day was introduced in 1973 to the American society and a few years later, unlike in another countries, it has been recognized by its Senate and President. In the official proclamation we can read that the purpose of this holiday is “to honour grandparents, to give grandparents an opportunity to show love for their children's children, and to help children become aware of strength, information, and guidance older people can offer". The National Grandparents Day in The United States and Canada is in September, the first Sunday after the Labour Day. In 1990 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland the charitable organisations that had the needs and matters of elders as their highest value called “Age Concern” tried to implement this holiday but without much success at the time. With the wide Americanisation of European society, eighteen years later, the idea of honouring grandparents with a special day came back. And so in the United Kingdom the holiday has been celebrated since 2008 on the first Sunday of October but it is not very popularized maybe because it is a relatively new tradition that needs decades of enforcing. Thanks to the gift and card shops that always remember such occasions and can be found on almost every corner in English towns, the holiday is becoming more widely popular. It lacks however the governmental and media support. Hundreds of magazines comment every day on the Queen’s outfit but on the Grandparents’ Day they do not commemorate the fact that she is a grandmother. Also, there are no official nor unofficial celebrations that would help this occasion spread around the country. But the same charity that first introduced this day to British people organised in 2016 a fundraising event with activities related to relationships between grandparents and grandchildren. So maybe, with time, the significance of this holiday will be much higher than it is today.