Fruitcake Toss Day

Fruitcake Toss Day is observed on the first Saturday of January. This quirky holiday provides a playful solution for disposing of the dense, often-unwanted fruitcakes received during the December holiday season. While fruitcakes are known for their incredibly long shelf life due to high sugar and alcohol content, they are also famously heavy, making them the perfect objects for a distance-throwing competition. The event turns a common holiday joke into a community-building activity that emphasizes lightheartedness and the spirit of starting the new year with a laugh.

History of Fruitcake Toss Day

The origins of this event are rooted in the small town of Manitou Springs, Colorado. In 1996, a group of locals gathered in a public park to find a creative way to get rid of leftover holiday cakes rather than simply throwing them in the trash. What began as a small gathering of residents throwing cakes by hand quickly transformed into a major local festival known as “The Great Fruitcake Toss.” As the event gained popularity, participants began using engineering skills to build specialized machinery designed to launch the cakes hundreds of feet into the air.

Over the years, the competition grew to include categories for slingshots, catapults, and even pneumatic air cannons. One of the most famous moments in the holiday’s history occurred in 2007, when a group of Boeing engineers used a mock artillery piece fueled by compressed air to set an all-time record. Their fruitcake traveled 1,420 feet, a distance that remains a benchmark for enthusiasts. While the scale of the event in Manitou Springs has fluctuated over the decades, the concept has spread to other communities and backyards across the country as a humorous post-holiday tradition.

Why is Fruitcake Toss Day important?

This holiday is important because it offers a productive and entertaining outlet for dealing with food waste. Fruitcakes are among the most re-gifted items in the United States, and many eventually end up in landfills untouched. By participating in a toss, people transform these heavy desserts into tools for physical activity and social engagement. In some communities, the event is used as a fundraiser where entry fees or donated canned goods are collected to support local food pantries, turning a “hated” food item into a means of providing real nutrition to those in need.

The day also celebrates creativity and basic physics. Building a device to launch a fruitcake requires an understanding of tension, trajectory, and aerodynamics, making it an accidental educational opportunity for families and students. It encourages people to spend time outdoors during the cold month of January, fostering community spirit through shared absurdity. By embracing the “Keep Manitou Weird” mantra or similar local sentiments, the day helps maintain a sense of unique cultural identity and humor in an increasingly standardized world.

• It provides a humorous way to recycle unwanted holiday gifts
• The day encourages outdoor physical activity during the winter
• Community events often raise money or food for local charities
• It serves as a practical application for amateur engineering and physics
• The tradition reduces the amount of food waste sent to local landfills

How to Celebrate Fruitcake Toss Day

The most common way to celebrate is by organizing a small tossing competition with friends or neighbors in a large open space like a park or field. Participants can compete in different categories, such as the classic hand toss, a precision throw aimed at a target, or a “basketcake” event where the goal is to land the cake in a hoop. If you do not have a leftover fruitcake, many people bake a “regulation” version specifically for the event using a basic recipe of flour, nuts, and fruit to ensure the weight and density are consistent for fair competition.

For those who enjoy a technical challenge, the day is an excuse to build a simple catapult or slingshot. Using household items like bungee cords, wood scraps, or large rubber bands, you can experiment with different launch angles to see which method produces the longest flight. It is also important to consider the “aftermath” of the toss by ensuring the area is cleaned up. In many organized events, the remains of the tossed cakes are collected and given to local farms to be used as feed for animals like pigs, ensuring that nothing goes to waste.

• Organize a distance competition with friends in a local public park
• Build a simple DIY catapult using wood scraps and heavy rubber bands
• Bake a heavy fruitcake specifically designed for maximum flight distance
• Use a hula hoop as a target for a precision throwing contest
• Donate canned goods to a local pantry to match your entry “fee”

Fruitcake Toss Day Dates Table