December 19 Holidays

National Wreaths Across America Day is observed on the third Saturday of December — established by Morrill Worcester, who in 1992 placed surplus holiday wreaths from his Maine wreath company on veterans’ graves at Arlington National Cemetery, a tradition that has grown to placing more than 2 million wreaths on veterans’ graves at approximately 3,800 locations. Goa Liberation Day marks December 19, 1961, when Indian military forces ended 451 years of Portuguese colonial rule in Goa — completing the last significant act of Indian territorial unification after independence. National Hard Candy Day celebrates the crystallized sugar confection — from candy canes and lemon drops to butterscotch discs — whose manufacturing requires boiling sugar to 300°F (hard crack stage) and molding or pulling the resulting glass-like material. National Emo Day was established to celebrate emo — the emotionally intense rock subgenre that emerged from Washington D.C.’s hardcore scene in the mid-1980s and dominated American teen culture in the 2000s.