Order by the year each holiday was first observed. Cards that say national or federal use the year it became official. You place all 42 cards on one timeline, one at a time. You start with three lives, and ten right in a row wins a lost one back.
Every card is a day on the calendar that somebody had to start: family holidays, national observances, festivals, awareness days and shopping events. The place where it began is printed under the name, and you order them by the year each was first observed. A few cards mark when an older custom became a national or federal holiday, and those use the official year. One card starts on the line with its year showing. Slip each new card into a gap. A correct call shows the year; a wrong one still files the card in its true spot and costs one of three lives.
The calendar filled up slowly for centuries and then very fast. Family days and patriotic holidays bunch together, and the recent end is crowded with days invented by stores, websites and fans. A holiday that feels ancient may be younger than you think, while some quirky ones started earlier than the internet. Watch the cards that mark official recognition, since a custom can be celebrated long before a government signs off.
Want a longer game? On the deck tree you can tick this deck alongside any other one measured in release years and dates, and they shuffle into a single timeline together.
Here are 28 of the 42 cards you might be dealt, with 14 more in the deck. Their values stay hidden until you place them.
