Know how everyone scoffs that Valentine’s Day is a conspiracy devised by card companies and chocolatiers to part romantics from their money?

Well, Friendship Day actually WAS established by none other than Joye Clyde Hall (that’s J.C. to you), the founder of Hallmark Cards. Whether he was trying to sell more cards (probably) or get into heaven (possibly) the notion did stick to some degree. In 1958, some ex-military doctor named Ramon Artemio Bracho had the idea of celebrating Friendship Day worldwide and the same night he founded a group called the World Friendship Crusade. Presumably his motives were somewhat purer than Halls’s, but who knows? In 1998, the wife of then-General-Secretary of the United Nations Kofi Annan named Winnie the Pooh the world’s Ambassador of Friendship at the United Nations and the UN declared July 30 to be an official International Friendship Day.

Not to get all political, but as is often the case with the UN, this declaration apparently didn’t have much effect. Just because there’s a proclamation that International Friendship Day exists, almost nobody observes it On That Day. Many countries, including the United States, observe it on the first Sunday of August to facilitate weekend celebrations and broader participation—you know, a day you aren’t buried in work and might actually get to see friends. Argentina, Brazil, and Spain celebrate on July 20. A big hunk of South America celebrates it on February 14 instead of Valentine’s Day. (Take that, J.C. Hall!)

Suggested ways to celebrate this day involve spending quality time together, planning activities, sharing memories, and (go figure) giving thoughtful gifts. Personally, I will do my celebrating next Friday with a couple boozy girlfriends and a lot of snarky stories. I will probably be observing the actual day by spending quality time with my mom in the activity of organizing her basement and creating a memory of the Day I Got Mesothelioma or Hantavirus or Some Other Dread Disease from Who Knows What’s in That Air Down There.