A food observance on December 4 celebrating cookies in all their varieties, from homemade holiday batches to iconic commercial brands.
“Blue Chip Cookie Company's Matt Nader pitched December 4 in 1987, timing it for the season when, he said, people indulge.
The December 4 observance traces to Matt Nader, co-founder of the Blue Chip Cookie Company in San Francisco, who proposed National Cookie Day in 1987 as a holiday-season promotion. An earlier, separate strand is Sesame Street's Cookie Monster, who proclaimed his own Cookie Day in the 1980 book The Sesame Street Dictionary.
National Cookie Day did not start with a baker's tradition or a government decree. The December 4 date was a marketing decision, pitched in 1987 by the president of a San Francisco bakery who wanted a cookie holiday during the season when, he told a reporter, people indulge.
That origin is awkward for the version most people believe. Ask around and you will hear that Cookie Monster started it, and there is a grain of truth there: the Muppet did proclaim his own Cookie Day. But the famous detail, a 1976 Sesame Street calendar marking it on November 26, does not hold up against the record.
So a holiday that feels timeless is really two competing claims, one from a Muppet and one from a cash register, neither older than 1980. December 4 is simply the date the bakery won.
DEALS & OFFERS
National Cookie Day ran on December 4 without a tracked deal. Browse past offers from previous years.
Cookies are older than the idea of cookies. The first ones were not a treat at all but a tool. Bakers in roughly seventh-century Persia, after sugar became common in the region, would drop small dabs of cake batter onto a hot surface to test an oven's temperature before committing a full cake to it.
The word arrived much later, and from a different place. It comes from the Dutch koekje, a diminutive of koek, meaning little cake. Dutch settlers carried it to New Amsterdam, and by around 1808 American English had borrowed it for the small, flat, sweet cake we mean today.
The cookie that would define the country did not exist until 1938. Ruth Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie at her Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, and published the recipe that same year.
A year later she sold the rights to Nestle for one dollar, along with a lifetime supply of chocolate and a consulting role. Nestle launched its Toll House morsels in 1940, and the recipe spread to the back of every chocolate-chip bag in America.
By the time anyone thought to give cookies a day, the food was woven through American life. The pop-culture claim came first: Cookie Monster proclaimed his own National Cookie Day in the 1980 Random House book The Sesame Street Dictionary.
The calendar date came from somewhere far less whimsical. In 1987, Matt Nader, co-founder of the Blue Chip Cookie Company at Fisherman's Wharf, proposed National Cookie Day on December 4 as a holiday-season promotion for his shop. The attribution is documented in an August 1987 Los Angeles Times article.
The two strands never quite merged, and the Sesame Street version that circulates most, a November 26 listing on a 1976 calendar, is not in that calendar's actual record. The day people observe each December 4 is, at its root, a bakery's idea that stuck.
TIMELINE
MYTH VS FACT
Sesame Street created National Cookie Day on a 1976 calendar, dated November 26.
The actual 1976 Sesame Street calendar contains no Cookie Day. The verifiable Sesame Street strand is Cookie Monster's proclamation in the 1980 book The Sesame Street Dictionary, and the December 4 date traces to the Blue Chip Cookie Company in 1987.
It is observed every year on December 4 in the United States.
COLOPHON
Indulge your sweet tooth on National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day! Delicious recipes, discounts, and deals await you - don't miss out!
An unofficial United States food observance, held each May 15, that honors the chocolate chip, the small drop of chocolate baked into cookies and other treats.
Celebrate Bake Cookies Day with your family and friends - whip up a batch of delicious cookies for everyone to enjoy!
Get ready to indulge in all your favorite cookies this National Cookie Month! From classic chocolate chip to unique flavors, the options are endless.
