Last updated on August 19, 2024
Jamaica Plain resident Gwendolyn Teutsch created her own holiday and it’s more fun and tasty than Festivus.
With friends and family, including her toddler, she celebrated it at the Johnson Playground Spraydeck by Green Street on August 17. Throughout her life, Sprinkle Day has been a very important day to her.
How long have you lived in Jamaica Plain?
Teutsch: We moved to JP in 2018 – we actually got the keys to our apartment on Sprinkle Day!
What is Sprinkle Day?
Teutsch: Or Sprinkler Day – you’ll hear it named both ways because as a kid I called it Sprinkler, but as an adult, felt that “sprinkle” more accurately captured the essence. Sprinkle Day is a holiday to celebrate summer. Anyone can celebrate by running through a sprinkler, eating ice cream with sprinkles, or both!
When and why did you create Sprinkle Day?
Teutsch: The first Sprinkle Day was celebrated on August 17, 1998. My family lived in Bolton, MA and we celebrated by setting up the sprinkler in our backyard and making ice cream sundaes with sprinkles.
Why is it called Sprinkle Day? Do you recall any other possible names?
Teutsch: As a child, I loved everything related to sprinkles. We even had a cat that I named Sprinkles. I remember feeling that “Sprinkles” captured two of my favorite summertime activities: playing outside with water and eating ice cream with colorful toppings.
Is there significance in Sprinkle Day being on August 17?
Teutsch: Anyone who knows me knows that I love summer, especially the month of August. I felt that August was a month to be celebrated, especially because there weren’t any holidays in the month that my family or community celebrated.
How have you celebrated Sprinkle Day through the years?
Teutsch: Different years and stages of life have taken on different forms of celebrating. With friends/family over the years, we’ve run through spray decks along the Greenway, in Back Bay, or in a friend’s yard. Some years the focus has been going to an ice cream shop. One year it hailed really hard and that made for a memorable day. Last year, the theme was cookie sandwiches. We met at Johnson Splashpad — some attendees made cookies, some made ice cream, and we created lots of funky flavors and combinations. Some years have been busier, and it’s been simply taking a moment of pause as I walk by someone’s lawn sprinkler and sending a picture to a friend to wish them a “Happy Sprinkle Day”. Now that we have a young child, I am looking forward to how the holiday will continue to evolve, take on new traditions, and continue to grow within our JP community.
How did you celebrate Sprinkle Day this year?
Teutsch: Since living in JP, we’ve befriended lots of people who like to cook and share delicious foods, thanks to the JP Potluck Peeps community. The same crew behind last year’s cookie sandwich theme, came back with even more attendees and ice cream flavors. We had flavors ranging from “mixed berry” to “everything bagel”. There was a wide array of toppings to “sprinkle” onto your ice cream of choice. The holiday wrapped up with a run through the splashpad.
And your husband asked you to marry him on Sprinkle Day?
Teutsch: Izak has known that Sprinkle Day has been a really special day to me — and in 2020 he proposed after we ran through the Stony Brook splash pad. It happened to be one of those unseasonably cold August days where I think he was nervous I wouldn’t want to run through the cold water, or maybe would want to skip the splash pad altogether. Fortunately for him, it could have been snowing in August and I still would have gone in the spirit of the day.
What else would you like people to know about Sprinkle Day?
Teutsch: Boston is really a special place to celebrate this day — we live in a city that has one of the best splash pads to resident ratios — I think there are more than 80 in this city. While I loved growing up with a sprinkler in a yard, I really love how this holiday has grown to take on a more communal feeling that also celebrates our public parks and green spaces.
