Let's Get Nerdy

    What is Hobbit Day? – Let’s Get Nerdy!

    Ashley Victoria RobinsonBy 6 Mins Read

    Amazon Studios is producing a piece of struck work inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. We want all Spoilerites to have the best viewing experience possible and have the widest knowledge base about the Second Age of Middle-Earth. This is a weekly Let’s Get Nerdy article series highlighting a different piece of Tolkien I think you need to know about!

    Last week you probably saw a whole bunch of geeky folx on the Internet celebrating or extolling the virtues of Hobbit Day.

    Tea with Tolkien has an entire section of their blog dedicated to Hobbit Day and this year as well as a cheese ball Bag End video and recipe they shared this year:

    … and even I got in on the fun:

    I can understand as folx who may not have read every single piece of work J.R.R. Tolkien produced on Middle-Earth that Hobbit Day could really seem as though it has come out of nowhere. I think The Middle-Earth Companion sums it up the most succinctly in back-to-back slides from last week:

    Hobbit Day is, quite simply, the shared birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins!

    It was conceived of as a day to be celebrated by readers by The American Tolkien Society as part of the  Tolkien Week celebration. Per the page on the official website:

    Tolkien Week is observed as the calendar week containing September 22, which is always observed as Hobbit Day.  Tolkien Week 2006 will begin Sunday, September 17 and end Saturday, September 23.

    Both celebrations began in 1978.  Hobbit Day in particular, and Tolkien Week as well, have gained some measure of legal dignity through a variety of proclamations, declarations, tributes and similar governmental documents prepared by elected officials who support the Society, its goals and the observance of these holidays.  Both events have attracted bipartisan support, from the county courthouse to the White House and U.S. Capitol.

    That’s right! The creation of Hobbit Day went all the way to the top!

    The American Tolkien Society goes on to include more about Hobbit Day:

    Hobbit Day, on the other hand, is scheduled to fall on Bilbo’s and Frodo’s mutual birthday, the date of the Long Awaited Party (translated in text by Tolkien as September 22).  This is perhaps the oldest festal observance associated with Tolkien fandom.  Celebration actually predates the formal designation of the holiday.  A variety of names have been applied to the date and the celebrations.

    In large part, Hobbit Day is usually taken up with the fun activities – the feasts, games, costume events, fireworks and the like.  Hobbit Day is a virtually ideal holiday, incorporating attractive elements of several others: the masquerade fun of Halloween, the feast of Thanksgiving, the exchange of greeting cards and gifts associated with Christmas and birthdays, the picnic atmosphere of Labor Day and Memorial Day, the fireworks of Independence Day (or Guy Fawkes Day)… and the study and reflection associated with many commemorative days throughout the year.

    Readers and fans post The Lord of the Rings film trilogy have taken to cooking the famous Hobbit meals: Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevensies, Luncheon, Afternoon Tea, Dinner, Supper. If this is something that strikes your fancy I like to point to Reddit to begin planning your menu:

    This year I was in Las Vegas on Hobbit Day (September 22nd), for MagicCon: Las Vegas (and amazingly had a brief chat with Elijah Wood), so I wasn’t able to celebrate until this week. I like to pair Hobbit Day celebrations with reading or watching. Whichever more strikes my fancy on the day. If you’ve never celebrated Hobbit Day I recommend adding it to your phone’s calendar for next year (and perhaps recurring for the rest of time!), it’s a completely secular holiday that celebrates friendship and fellowship and offers the perfect excuse to eat too much food with friends!

    In past articles I have answered the questions:

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    She/her. Canadian actress. Bi Queen. Canadian co-host of Geek History Lesson. Canadian comic book writer: Witchblade, Apollo IX, Jupiter Jet series, Science! The Elements of Dark Energy, Aurora and The Eagle. Award-losing: actor, writer, podcaster. https://linktr.ee/AshleyVRobinson

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