December 21 is ‘Carol Day’: how a Cate Blanchett classic became a queer movie holiday

Just like October 3rd is Mean Girls Day and April 25th is Miss Congeniality Day, December also has a movie holiday: December 21st is Carol Day, marking the celebration of the modern classic cenematic triumph starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.

Carol is the 2015 love story about a young, shy clothing store employee named Therese (Mara) whose life is changed forever when an elegant, sophisticated stranger named Carol (Blanchett) comes in to do a bit of shopping one day. The two fall into a torrid romance, which unfortunately leads to the downfall of Carol’s personal life, as this was all in the 1950s and poor Carol was fighting through a divorce that became very, very “ugly.”

In the movie, December 21, 1952 is the day Therese (Mara) and Carol (Blanchett) spend a significant Sunday together: Carol picks up Therese in Manhattan, and they go out to a Christmas tree lot in the country. They pick out a tree together, marking a lovely date for the couple, and building the romantic tension.

This date isn’t actually spoken aloud in the dialogue, but it appears in Therese’s calendar, and is understood as the date of that Sunday outing in their story timeline.

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Fans, particularly fans of lesbian folk, have turned December 21 into an unofficial “Carol Day” to celebrate the movie because of this scene, and that association has grown in queer fan culture.

For 2025’s Carol Day, in San Francisco at the Toni Rembe Theater, fans can celebrate en masse with a 10th-anniversary screening, including special guests like director Todd Haynes and drag queen Peaches Christ as host.

In honor of the grand affair, Lauren Gray, Vice President of the San Francisco-based National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR), based in San Francisco, sent us this message:

“San Francisco’s annual ‘Carol Day’ celebrates a romantic drama that has won critical acclaim,” Gray said, “capturing hearts and depicting a tragic era when queer parents routinely lost custody of their children.

“In 1977, NCLR became the first national legal organization founded by queer women to address systemic legal discrimination against LGBTQ people and their families. Like the title character in Carol, many of NCLR’s clients had their children taken away simply because of who they were. NCLR continued to battle this heartbreaking injustice well into the 1990s.

“On December 21, we look forward to rewatching this epic love story and acknowledging both the pain of our history and the progress we’ve made.”

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Before Stonewall: 9 must-see queer period pieces set in the mid-20th century
Before Stonewall: 9 must-see queer period pieces set in the mid-20th century

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