National Family PJ Day

The day was founded in 2019 by Soma, the sleepwear and intimates brand, to celebrate lounging with loved ones during Sleep Comfort Month. November made perfect sense: the holidays approach, the air turns cold, and Soma's coziest collections become its most popular. The Registrar at National Day Calendar proclaimed the observance, and it has been growing softer ever since.

Pajamas themselves have a well-traveled past. The word comes from the Hindi ‘pae jama,’ meaning leg clothing, and loose trouser-and-tunic sleepwear was popularized from South Asia through the Ottoman Empire long before the West caught on. Westerners once scoffed at the informality, until French designer Coco Chanel folded baggy trousers and loose tops into her early twentieth century collections and pajamas stepped out of the bedroom and into fashion.

The matching family pajama has since become a retail phenomenon. By 2017, one major retailer told the Washington Post that family pajama sales had grown by double digits for five straight years, and Old Navy has reported selling nearly twenty million pairs of its Jingle Jammies between Halloween and New Year's Eve. From Taylor Swift's ‘Lover’ video to holiday card photo shoots, coordinated coziness is now a full-blown tradition.

Celebrating is wonderfully simple: pick the comfiest set you own, gather the whole crew (pets included), and let the day unfold. Movie marathons, board games, breakfast in bed, or absolutely nothing at all. On November 14, doing nothing together is doing it right.