Slang dictionary
Maycember
[ may-sem-ber ]
What does Maycember mean?Â
Maycember is the manic time of year when parents find themselves drowning in end-of-school activities, sporting events, concerts, awards, teacher appreciation days, graduation rituals, bake sales, summer camp paperwork, and Memorial Day plans.
Really, it’s just the month of May, but parents have begun to use the portmanteau of May and December to cheekily compare the chaos of the spring month to December, a month that serves up a similarly hectic series of kid-centric events, but without the crackling fire, eggnog, or social permission to cancel plans and curl up under a weighted blanket. It’s nonstop hustle with no gifts to look forward to.Â
Instead, you give snacks to the second-grade picnic and sign 400 permission slips while coordinating a slideshow for the middle-school graduation banquet.
Where does Maycember come from?
The term was popularized by The Holderness Family, who coined Maycember across their musical, family-themed blog and social media channels to describe the pandemonium that descends on parents every May. (The word also serendipitously smacks of “mayhem,” though whether that’s intentional, we don’t know.)
Since The Holderness Family’s first blog post on the topic in 2016 and subsequent social posts over the years, the word — complete with the family’s viral parody tunes — has become a seasonal anthem for exhausted caregivers posting memes, confessions, and shared survival tactics across social media.
And in an age where burnout is practically a badge of honor, Maycember memes now rack up tens of thousands of likes and shares from parents nodding silently at their phones while hiding in their minivans.
Examples of Maycember
Who uses Maycember?
The term Maycember is popular with parents to describe the end-of-year rush. Teachers, coaches, scout leaders, and anyone else managing small humans during the final sprint of the academic calendar are well familiar with this logistical gauntlet as well.
If you’re ordering cupcakes on the way to a science fair while mentally drafting a work email, and there’s a half-finished costume for Spirit Day in the backseat of your car, that’s Maycember energy.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of Maycember like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of Maycember that will help our users expand their word mastery.