National Ice Cream Day

Nicolas Ettlin / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

National Ice Cream Day falls on the third Sunday in July in the United States, though there is another in December.

In 1984, then-President Ronald Reagan signed into law this day to be National Ice Cream Day and the entire month of July to be National Ice Cream Month. Technically, only the day and month in 1984 were the official days, but the celebrations have been upheld ever since.

Ice cream itself is a frozen food eaten as a snack or for dessert. It is made with either dairy milk or cream, and then flavoured with sweetening and spices - cocoa and vanilla are both spices - and frequently coloured. For vegetarians and vegans, there are non-dairy alternatives, though these are technically not ice cream. What ice cream is can vary in definition from country to country and different names, such as frozen custard and frozen yoghurt, can be used to distinguish different types of frozen dessert.