Topin Wagglegammon

Topin Wagglegammons
Past

Topin Wagglegammon has been celebrated in LOTS of different ways over the years, by lots of different people. Here's just a sampling of some of the ways it's been celebrated which have brought the most fun and the most smiles to the people involved.

1998
As the first year in which Topin Wagglegammon was ever celebrated, this year's celebrations were understated, mostly because no one yet knew how to celebrate. None the less, the celebrations which were enacted included much laughing, walking around in pleasant outdoor weather, and wishing people a jouyous Topin Wagglegammon without explaining what Topin Wagglegammon was.

2004
Topin Wagglegammon 2004 was celebrated with an ancient mystic rite whose name translated roughly into English as "Tactical Nuclear Ferret." This rite called for the following easy-to-find items: a catapult, two six-sided dice, a live ferret, the Dutch National Basketball Team, two cream pies (low fat), a stick, and a marked deck of cards. No records exist of how the rite was actually performed, however, leaving modern scholars to speculate.

2006
In 2006, Topin Wagglegammon was again celebrated by an ancient and mysterious ritual, this one known as The Ancient Rite Of The Four Cookies And A Coat Hanger And Some Other Stuff. Records actually do survive explaining how this rite was performed. The ritual required two cookies, one stuffed toy, a large hammer, a copy of your local newspaper or a piece of smoked salmon, an icon representing all evil in the world, an image of the state of Florida, the lyrics to "Spaceballs: The Song", an Earthworm Jim action figure or a reasonable proxy, another cookie, water from a river running through a battlefield which once ran red with blood (or, if this is difficult to procure, some lint), an hourglass, one more cookie, a plastic or metal coathanger, a fnord, and a chainsaw. The ritual was then conducted as follows:

1) Put away your chainsaw. They aren't safe and shouldn't be left lying around. Next, prepare your ritual space. Clear out anything extraneous from a five-foot square. On a plate or napkin, place your four cookies reverentially in the center of the space. Put your coathanger on the floor next to them on one side and put your newspaper (or lox) down on the other side. Keep everything else within easy reach. Sit quietly and meditate until you achieve universal harmony, or you get bored, or nine seconds, or whatever you like.
2) Eat a cookie.
3) Pick up your stuffed toy and snuggle it briefly. Put it on top of the newspaper (or next to, but not on top of, the lox). Read the headline (or eat the lox). Remove the newspaper from the sacred space.
4) Place your image of Florida on the floor. Place the icon representing all evil on top of Florida. Take your stuffed toy and have it bop, kick, karate-grip, or otherwise displace, move, or beat up the icon of all evil. If this feels insufficient, smash the icon with a hammer until satisfied. Remove the icon, the hammer, and the image of Florida from the sacred space. Snuggle your stuffed toy.
5) Eat a cookie.
6) Read aloud from the Hitchhiker's Guide briefly, and then sing part of Spaceballs: The Song. Place both reverntially outside the sacred space. Stand up and put away your coathanger properly in the closet.
7) Go get your icon of evil and put it back in the sacred space. Laugh maniacally, quietly. Pick up your Earthworm Jim action figure and beat up, smash, tear apart, or otherwise bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate the icon of evil. Laugh maniacally loudly. Remove the icon and Earthworm Jim from the sacred space.
8) Eat half a cookie.
9) Invert your hourglass. Pour out your water onto the floor. Invert your hourglass again. Wait for the sand to run out. Stick your tongue out at it. Remove the hourglass from your sacred space.
10) Snuggle your stuffed toy. Reverentially place your stuffed toy in its proper place. Eat half a cookie.
11) Give someone your fnord. Under no circumstances explain to them what it means, except saying that fnords are meant to be given to people. If they ask why you are giving out fnords, explain that it is because it is Topin Wagglegammon. Under no circumstances explain Topin Wagglegammon, except to say that it is the day one gives away fnords.
12) Return to the sacred space. Do a happy dance. Eat your fourth cookie.

2007
The "Your 2007 Topin Wagglegammon Instruction Manual, Yippy Skippy" was the first official Topin Wagglegammon guide. While nobody was forced to celebrate Topin Wagglegammon in a certain way, the publishing of an Official Instruction Manual was meant to provide some easy ideas for those who might not be sure how best to celebrate the Niftiest Day of the Year. some suggestions from the Instruction Manual included:
1) Play with a stuffed toy, preferably a weasel, in honour of Nukee the Weasel, the Topin Wagglegammon 2007 Mascot And Overpaid Celebrity Endorser.
2) Listen to music you have never listened to before.
3) Play with gummi bears, because if ever a food existed to be played with, it's gummi bears.
4) Stick things to people, such as stickers, or name tags. Alternately, for a great challenge, get some duct tape or super glue and stick people to things, such as the wall, the photocopier, or the underside of a major city bridge.
The selection of Nukee the Weasel as Mascot And Overpaid Celebrity Endorser was further explained with the telling of the story of Simon the Cute Little Duckie and his encounter with Morty the Enraged Badger.

2009
In 2009, celebrants of Topin Wagglegammon created the Topin Wagglegammon Planning And Disorganzation Commitee, which was also known as the Trap Duck. Topin Wagglegammon 2009's official foodstuff was the poached egg cake, a simple recipe made by microwaving eggs and bread together. This was accompanied by the official game, The Comprehension Fumble, wherein players competed to make a victim believe the most improbable thing about Topin Wagglegammon possible. Finally, the Trap Duck authorized an official greeting for 2009, which was, "Hello. Each year, the heavens exclaim really excellent signs about people eating nougat gathered under incredibly noisy speakers in their towns. If not, golly, one night your own universe really has earned a drubbing." When the first letter of each word is taken and written down, this acrostic spells out, "Hey, there's a penguin sitting on your head." When you take the *last* letter of each word, it spells "oh, res my tstegt dry ysnrsf tye trneysdag," or possibly "gads, yenr tey tfsrn! Syyrd tgetst ymser ho" depending which end you start rewriting from. Either way, this clearly speaks for itself.

2010
In 2010, Topin Wagglegammon was celebrated with its official snack, tire sur la pingouin. This simple and tasty dish is made by heating some maple syrup to somewhere in the area of 115 degrees celsius, plus or minus a few degrees, and pouring it onto a block of ice in the shape of a penguin. The hot syrup hardens on contact with the ice, becoming tire sure la pingouin, a vaguely penguin-shaped partially-melted blob covered in a coating of maple candy. This was accompanied by the official Topin Wagglegammon 2010 drink, the mab, made with 2 ounces of citrus-flavoured soda, 1 ounce of rum, 1 ounce of vodka, 2 ounces of lemonade, 2 ounce of orange juice, and a teaspoon of grenadine, and a teaspoon of cinnamon. This food was meant to be prepared (perhaps not actually *eaten*) in the presence of a plush Snoopy doll (the official mascot of Topin Wagglegammon 2010) while listening to Roberto Carlos Nakai's 12-20-82 Song.

2011
In 2011, the Topin Wagglegammon Organizers' National Klatch of Yeasties decreed that Topin Wagglegammon should be celebrated with footnotes. People were encouraged to fill their writing, their messages, their emails, and if possible even their speech with footnotes! Footnotes can be used to spread information easily and efficiently, but can also be used to make information hidden and utterly inaccessible. Of course, footnotes really only have meaning in interactions with others, so Topin Wagglegammon 2011 required celebrants to spread the Topin Wagglegammon joy with others through all manner of communication (and miscommunication).

2012
In 2012, due to a misprint in the agenda of the organization committee, the planning of Topin Wagglegammon was left up to a large piece of coffee cake. Even when the error was discovered, most of the commitee members were reluctant to change their plans, as they felt that the coffee cake would probably do a good job, but this plan fell into disarray when the cake was eaten in the days just before the first of October. Due to the confusion, Topin Wagglegammon 2012 had no official food, drink, or mascot, as many previous years had had, but most considered this perfectly acceptable. After all, if Topin Wagglegammon was celebrated with a mascot in 2011, some would say that this is then the one way in which it cannot be celebrated in 2012. In any event, despite the lack of centralized planning, most celebrants still managed to organize some sort of local party, and had a perfectly good time doing it.

2013
In 2013, an official Topin Wagglegammon Countdown was launched in the days prior to Topin Wagglegammon. Official Topin Wagglegammon Brain-Stimulating Quotations were published for the five days leading up to October 26th. These quotations disseminated the wisdom of such luminaries as G'Kar of Narn, Douglas Adams, and Carl Sagan, all sentient beings who embody, however unknowingly, many of the lessons of Topin Wagglegammon.

The day of Topin Wagglegammon itself had these two Official Topin Wagglegammon Activities, as established by the Topin Wagglegammon Autocratic Decision Making Committee, in the spirit of raising awareness about world security:

1) Password Protection: All official Topin Wagglegammon parties were required to have passwords in place at their front door, and guests were permitted entry if and only if they DID NOT know the password.
2) Skill-Testing Question: All official Topin Wagglegammon parties were required to protect their alcohol supplies with a Skill-Testing Question, which could be chosen at the discretion of local organizers. Popular sample questions included the ever-classic Discordian shibboleth: "are you a human being, and not a cabbage or something?" Other questions were acceptable as long as they were, in some way, skill-testing.

2015
In 2015, the Topin Wagglegammon Organizers' Helpfully Eager Association of Disorganizers Societies ordained that the Niftiest Day of the Year would be celebrated with bad poetry. A subsequent addendum specified that this should be BRIEF bad poetry, after concerns were expressed that some of history's worst poems could easily last for several hours. All official Topin Wagglegammon parties were encouraged to have a dedicated poetry space, where anyone who wished may present terrible, terrible poetry, and listeners could then hurl objects at them in response. In addition to this, all the usual forms of Topin Wagglegammon celebration were heartily encouraged.

2016
In 2016, the Topin Wagglegammon Historical Society ressurrected Eat Your Calendar Day, an old, long-forgotten holiday from the Imperial calendar. Celebrants were encouraged to make or procure an edible calendar -- recognizing that technically, almost anything can qualify as "edible" -- and share it with people special to them. Of course, "calendar" is also a word that can have different meanings: a rectangle with 31 days, a disc tracking a cycle of centuries, or a pile twelve layers deep all qualified.

2019
In 2019, the theme of Topin Wagglegammon was deities. In a bid to find a deity to which to dedicate Topin Wagglegammon, individuals all over the world were invited to submit their choices for the most fitting. At the Aerican Embassy to Everything Else, guests attended a BOYD (Bring Your Own Deity) party. Of course, there were so many excellent choices that no single one was picked, and Topin Wagglegammon remained a completely non-religious day.

Topin Wagglegammon

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