1. What is the International Day of Pancakes? It’s a holiday celebrated by eating pancakes for every meal, but in which each meal’s pancakes have to come from a different culinary culture.

2. What counts as a pancake? Strict observers of the holiday only consider pancakes to be that which goes onto the cooking surface as a batter. So crepes, dosa, latkes, and ebelskiver all are examples of things which count as pancakes (though the latter are in fact spherical). A less orthodox view of the holiday allows any flatbread (e.g. tortillas) though one typically does not include pizza, not even of the thin-crust variety.

3. When is it celebrated? The International Day of Pancakes is celebrated the first Sunday of December, except in years preceding a leap year (where the leap year isn’t divisible by 400) or in years where the non-zero digits multiply to 16, in which case it is celebrated on the second Sunday of December.

4. That sounds super complicated to keep track of. Is there a calendar? Yep! There’s a public Google calendar here which has the correct dates through 2033: https://goo.gl/omgLZY

5. Wait, is that a holiday you made up? Well spotted. But hey, other people get to make up holidays, including greeting card companies, so why not us? A bit more history: This is the result of my kids asking if we could have pancakes for every meal, and me responding: yes, but only once a year, and it has to be enriching in some way.

6. Shouldn’t it be called the Day of International Pancakes? That doesn’t sound as good. Also, if it starts being celebrated outside of the US, the original name will be just as true. Live outside the US? You can help :)

7. Don’t they have a Pancake Day in the Netherlands? So I’ve heard! But alas it’s not even celebrated on the same day.