When is Grandparents Day? And why it matters more than you think

My grandfather used to keep butterscotch candies in his shirt pocket. Not the fancy kind — the ones in the crinkly gold cellophane that stuck to the wrapper. Every time I sat next to him, he'd fish one out and hand it to me without a word, like it was our secret.

He's been gone for years now. I can barely remember his voice. But I can still hear the sound of that cellophane.

If you're here because you Googled "when is Grandparents Day," the answer is simple: it's the first Sunday after Labor Day, which puts it somewhere in early-to-mid September each year. In 2025, that's September 7th. In 2026, it's September 13th.

But the more interesting question is what you do with that information once you have it.

The short answer (and the longer one)

Grandparents Day lands on the first Sunday after Labor Day in the United States. Congress made it official in 1978 after President Jimmy Carter signed the proclamation. The date was chosen to sit in that in-between space where summer gives way to fall — a seasonal transition that, whether the lawmakers intended it or not, carries a certain weight when you think about the generations ahead of us.

The woman who pushed hardest for the holiday was Marian McQuade, a mother of fifteen from West Virginia. She wasn't a politician or a lobbyist. She was someone who spent years visiting elderly people in nursing homes and realized that many of them were alone. Not because their families didn't care, but because no one had built the habit of showing up. She wanted a day that would nudge people toward their grandparents before the chance was gone.

That nudge still matters. Maybe more now than it did in 1978.

What other countries do (and when)

The United States isn't the only country that sets aside a day for grandparents, though the dates vary enough to make your head spin.

In the UK, the first Sunday in October is National Grandparents Day. France splits the holiday into two: the Fete des Grands-Meres falls in early March, while a separate Fete des Grands-Peres lands in early October. Poland does something similar with separate days for grandmothers (January 21) and grandfathers (January 22), which means grandparents get back-to-back celebrations in the dead of winter.

Mexico celebrates Dia del Abuelo on August 28th. Italy marks the Festa dei Nonni on October 2nd, which coincides with the Catholic feast of the Guardian Angels — a connection that feels deliberate.

Australia puts it on the last Sunday in October, and Canada observes the second Sunday in September, just a week or so after the American version.

What's interesting isn't the variety of dates. It's the consistency of the impulse. Across continents and languages and wildly different family structures, people keep arriving at the same idea: we need a day that tells us to stop and look at the oldest people in our families before they're gone. No one has to be taught that grandparents matter. But apparently we all need to be reminded.

Why this holiday hits different than the others

Mother's Day and Father's Day get the Hallmark treatment. Flowers, brunches, phone calls home. Grandparents Day? Most people don't even know it exists. There's no commercial machine behind it, no guilt-driven card aisle at the pharmacy.

And maybe that's what makes it honest.

The relationship between a grandchild and a grandparent is strange and specific. Your parents raise you. They enforce bedtimes, push you through homework, set the rules you spend your teenage years resenting. Grandparents operate in different territory. They're the ones who slip you a twenty when your parents aren't looking. Who tell you stories about your mom when she was your age and just as stubborn. Who let you eat cereal for dinner because rules are different at their house.

But here's the thing people don't talk about: that relationship is borrowed time from the start. The math is brutal. If your grandparents are in their seventies and you see them twice a year, you might have twenty visits left. Maybe fewer. And each one passes without much fanfare — a Sunday dinner, a holiday phone call, a quick stop on the way to somewhere else.

Grandparents Day isn't going to fix that math. But it can make you count.

What to actually do with the day

I'm not going to give you a listicle of "25 ways to celebrate Grandparents Day!" because most of those suggestions — make a scrapbook! plant a tree together! — feel like they were written by someone who doesn't know your grandmother.

Instead, here's what I'd actually suggest.

Ask them something real. Not "how are you" — they'll say "fine" every time. Ask them what their first apartment looked like. Ask them about the worst job they ever had. Ask them what they worried about when they were your age. Then shut up and listen. You will hear things you've never heard before, I promise.

Record it if they'll let you. Your phone is sitting in your pocket right now. Hit record on a voice memo. Someday that recording will be worth more than anything else on your phone.

Write something down for them. It doesn't have to be long. A handwritten note that says "I remember when you taught me to fish and I caught a stick and you told me it was the best stick you'd ever seen" will sit on their nightstand for months. If you want to see what a letter like that can look like, we've collected some legacy letter examples that sound like real people.

Show up in person if you can. A visit beats a phone call. A phone call beats a text. A text beats silence. Pick the best option you've got and do it.

The grandparents who aren't here anymore

Not everyone reading this still has grandparents to call. Some of you lost yours recently. Some of you lost yours before you were old enough to remember them clearly.

Grandparents Day can sting when the person you want to celebrate isn't here. But I think there's still something to do with the day.

You can tell your kids about them. Pull out an old photo, one they haven't seen. Tell the story behind it, even if you have to fill in some blanks. Kids are surprisingly good at holding onto stories about people they never met. Those stories become a kind of knowing, not quite memory, but something close.

If you're a grandparent yourself now, or heading in that direction, this is worth sitting with: what will your grandchildren remember about you? Will it be the sound of your laugh? The way you said their name? The thing you always kept in your pocket?

You get some say in that. Not total control — memory is unpredictable — but some say. Writing a letter to your grandchildren is one of the most direct ways to make sure your voice sticks around after you do.

What the holiday is really asking you to do

Marian McQuade didn't push for Grandparents Day because she wanted another item on the September calendar. She pushed for it because she kept visiting elderly people who had no visitors. She saw what it looked like when the connection between generations frayed, and she wanted to stitch it back together, one awkward Sunday dinner at a time.

The holiday is a question disguised as a date: are you paying attention to the people who won't always be here?

It's easy to assume there will be another Thanksgiving, another birthday party, another summer visit. And usually there is. Until there isn't. And then you're left wishing you'd asked about that butterscotch candy, or the first car they drove, or what they were thinking the day your parent was born.

You don't need a holiday to pick up the phone. But sometimes a reminder on the calendar is exactly the push you need.

So put it on yours. First Sunday after Labor Day. Set the alarm now, while you're thinking about it, because September will arrive faster than you expect, and the day will slide past if you let it.

This September, do something about it. Call. Visit. Write something down. Ask one question you've never asked before.

The people who shaped your parents, who shaped you, who are shaping your children right now — they won't be here forever. None of us will.

At When I Die Files, we help people leave behind the words that matter most, the stories, the advice, the love that's hard to say out loud. If Grandparents Day has you thinking about what you want your family to remember, that's a good place to start.