April Fools'!

Welcome to April 1st, also known as April Fools’ Day! This is a day where people everywhere play tricks and pranks on each other, laugh, and yell "April Fools’!"! It is a lighthearted day filled with people who are having a good laugh. I remember every April 1st as a child we pulled the same joke on my mom each year. We put a rubber band around the handle of the water sprayer attached to the kitchen sink, so when my mom would come to the kitchen and turn the sink on in the morning she would get sprayed by the water. We would laugh like crazy and yell April Fools’! My mom was such a good sport she pretended for several years to be surprised by this predictable prank that we as kids just couldn’t get enough of.

So where did April Fools’ originate from? No kidding, no one knows for sure! It may have originated in Ancient Rome at a festival called Hilaria where people dressed up in disguises and mocked their fellow citizens. It could also have come from when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar back in 1582. New Year’s Day on the Julian calendar was April 1 and with the new calendar it switched to January 1st. Well back then news was slow to travel and didn’t always reach everyone in a timely manner. So when some people were still celebrating the New Year in the streets on April 1st they were laughed at, made fun of, and called April Fools.