National Grandparents Day: Dates, History, and 15 Ways to Actually Celebrate It

Grandparents Day 2026 falls on Sunday, September 13, 2026. Grandparents Day 2027 falls on Sunday, September 12, 2027. Every year, National Grandparents Day is the first Sunday after Labor Day in September, so the date shifts a little year to year, but the rule never does.

Grandparents Day Dates: 2026, 2027, and How to Find Any Year

You don't need to look this up every September. Once you know the rule, you can figure out any future year in about ten seconds: find Labor Day (the first Monday in September), then count forward to the next Sunday.

Year	Labor Day	National Grandparents Day
2026	Monday, September 7	Sunday, September 13, 2026
2027	Monday, September 6	Sunday, September 12, 2027
2028	Monday, September 4	Sunday, September 10, 2028
2029	Monday, September 3	Sunday, September 9, 2029

Because Labor Day itself can fall anywhere from September 1 to September 7, Grandparents Day always lands somewhere between September 7 and September 13, never earlier, never later.

What Is National Grandparents Day?

National Grandparents Day is a U.S. observance dedicated to honoring grandparents and strengthening the relationship between generations. It isn't a federal holiday (nobody gets the day off, banks and schools operate normally), but it's an official presidential proclamation, and it shows up on nearly every calendar in the country every September.

Unlike Mother's Day or Father's Day, which are single-parent-focused and have decades of commercial tradition behind them, Grandparents Day still feels a little under-the-radar. Plenty of grandparents find out it happened after the fact, from a card that shows up a few days late. That's part of why it's worth marking on purpose instead of hoping it comes up naturally.

Why Isn't Grandparents Day the Same Date Every Year?

Grandparents Day is defined relative to Labor Day, not to a fixed date on the calendar, the same way Thanksgiving is "the fourth Thursday in November" instead of "November 26." Labor Day is always the first Monday in September, which itself can fall on any date from September 1 through September 7. Count to the following Sunday, and you have Grandparents Day, always six days after Labor Day.

This is also why the rule ("first Sunday after Labor Day") is more useful to remember than any single date: it works every year, including ones not listed above.

The History of National Grandparents Day

The day traces back to one person: Marian McQuade, a mother of 15 (and eventually grandmother of 43) from Fayette County, West Virginia, who began campaigning in 1970 for a national day recognizing grandparents. Her original motivation was specific: she wanted to encourage families to visit relatives in nursing homes, many of whom rarely saw their grandchildren.

McQuade's campaign worked its way up from the ground: West Virginia's governor proclaimed the first statewide Grandparents Day in 1973, and within a few years she had similar proclamations from more than 40 states. In 1977, Senator Jennings Randolph introduced a congressional resolution to make it a national observance, and on August 3, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed Proclamation 4580, officially designating the first Sunday after Labor Day each September as National Grandparents Day. In his proclamation, Carter pointed to grandparents' role in "setting the moral tone for the family and passing on the traditional values of our Nation," the same idea that quietly drives most families' Grandparents Day plans today: pause, and pay attention to the people who shaped you.

15 Ways to Actually Celebrate Grandparents Day

Cards and flowers are fine. But the thing people tend to wish they'd done, years later, is capture something: a story, a voice, an answer to a question they never got around to asking. Here are 15 ideas organized by whether you'll be together or apart, roughly in order of effort.

If You're Celebrating Together

1. Ask one real question and actually listen to the answer. Skip small talk. Ask something specific: "What was our family's house like when you were my age?" or "What's something you were scared of as a kid that turned out fine?" One good question beats an hour of catching up.
2. Cook a family recipe side by side, and write down the parts that never made it onto the recipe card. The pinch of this, the trick with that pan, the story of who taught them. That's the part that actually disappears if nobody writes it down.
3. Go through old photos together and let them narrate. Grandparents usually know who's in the photo, what year it was, and the story behind it, information that vanishes with them if it's never attached to the picture.
4. Make a craft, but make the story the point, not the object. A handprint card is sweet for a day; a card with one sentence in the grandparent's own words about what that day means to them gets kept for decades.
5. Do a "then and now" walk or drive: the house they grew up in, the street where they met their spouse, the diner that isn't there anymore. Being in the place brings out details a conversation alone never would.
6. Record five minutes of them just talking, no agenda. A joke they always tell, a song they know all the words to, the way they say your kid's name. The recording matters more than what's said.
7. Have your child interview them with a list of prepared questions. Kids ask better questions than adults do when they're handed a short list; see our full questions to ask your grandparents for a ready-made set.
8. Start (or add to) a family recipe box, letter, or memory book they can keep adding to every year, not just on this one day.

If You're Far Apart

9. Give your kid a call script instead of "say hi to Grandma." A short list of specific things to tell or ask ("tell her about the thing that happened at school") turns a stiff 90-second call into a real conversation. Our guide to long-distance grandparents has a full age-by-age version of this.
10. Do a video-call scavenger hunt. Have each side find and show something (a toy, a photo, a pet) while they talk. It gives kids something to do besides sit and stare at a screen.
11. Mail something that asks for a story back, not just says thanks. A card that says "tell me about your first pet" gets a letter back. A card that just says "Happy Grandparents Day" gets a nice, forgettable smile.
12. Trade voice messages instead of texts for a week. Hearing someone's actual voice (their laugh, their "oh you won't believe this") carries an intimacy text can't.
13. Watch the same movie or show "together" on a shared call, even hundreds of miles apart, and talk through it the way you would on a couch.
14. Send a recorded "memory of the week": thirty seconds from your kid about something that happened, sent the same way every week so it becomes a habit instead of a one-off.
15. Make recording a running tradition, not a one-time event. This is honestly the idea behind Ourtifacts: grandparents (near or far) get a short, specific prompt by email every so often, answer by just talking into their phone (no app, no typing), and it's kept, with their real voice, in a private vault for the grandchild. If step 12 or 14 above sounds appealing but you know it'll fizzle out after one good week, that's the exact gap a standing, gentle nudge is built to close.

Grandparents Day Quotes to Share

A short, honest quote in a card (or read aloud at dinner) often lands better than a store-bought verse.

• "Grandchildren are the dots that connect the lines from generation to generation." – Lois Wyse
• "A house needs a grandma in it." – widely attributed to Louisa May Alcott
• "Grandparents are a family's greatest treasure. The pearls of wisdom they share, no money can buy." – commonly used, author unattributed
• "Nothing is as good as when your grandma cooks for you." – widely attributed to Regina Brett
• "Grandparents hold our tiny hands for just a little while, but our hearts forever." – widely used, author unattributed

Grandparents Day Gift Ideas (and Craft Ideas)

If you're also gift-shopping this year, the best Grandparents Day gifts tend to be the same ones that work for any grandparent occasion: something personal, something useful, or something that captures a memory rather than just marking the day. Two starting points worth a look:

• Gifts for new grandparents: 18 ideas by type, including keepsake and "from baby" gifts, if this is a first-time grandparent.
• Christmas gifts for grandparents: many of these ideas (kid-made keepsakes, the "reverse gift" of asking for their stories) work just as well in September.

Bookmark This, Don't Just Remember It

Grandparents Day has a habit of sneaking up; it's not on most people's mental calendar the way Mother's Day or a birthday is. The rule is simple (first Sunday after Labor Day), but the easiest fix is to actually put it on your calendar for next year right now, before this year's date passes you by again.

And if the real goal isn't a card but a story you don't want to lose (the version of your mom or dad or grandparent that only exists in their own voice), that's what we built Ourtifacts for. It's a private family vault: grandparents get small, specific prompts and answer by talking into their phone, and everything, their actual voice included, is kept for the grandchild to have later. It's free to start, and Grandparents Day is as good a day as any to send the first one.