What's new

State/Province Holidays |Pad Patter 7.25

bestcee

bestcee

In love with places I've never been to
Joined
Dec 18, 2013
Messages
19,337
Today is the celebration day for Pioneer Day in Utah. It's a pretty big holiday, especially in the capital. We cheated and watched the parade on TV in our air conditioned apartment.

But it got me wondering. Does your town/city/state/province have a celebration day for something unique to it?
 
In Chicago we have Casimir Pulaski Day... it used to be a day off of school, but was taken off of the Chicago Public Schools calendar a couple of years ago. And, in addition to President's Day, we used to get Lincoln's Birthday off as well (that also went away at the same time as Pulaski Day). Pulaski Day is great because it was a three day weekend in March that not many school districts had. Lincoln's birthday was a little strange because some years you would have some random day off in the middle of the week.
 
In our small town in October we have Pumpkinfest. It's so fun. Everyone rolls a pumpkin down the big hill in town! It's actually quite hilarious. There are vendors lined up and down the street. It's just a fun small town event that I look forward to each year.
 
Sort of. We have the state fair that consumes our lives for 24 days out of September. It is insanity. It isn't a parade or celebration of the city, but it used to be called the Puyallup Fair and was more about the local area. We have Meeker Days in June that is a street fair over a weekend with music and vendors. And there is the Daffodil parade in April that covers a lot of our county with all kinds of floats and community interest, which is about as close as we get to a "local" celebratory thing. There are Daffodil princesses crowned from the county high schools and tons of people turn out for the parade.
 
In Maryland, March 25 is Maryland Day, the day in 1634 when the settlers from The Ark and The Dove set foot on soil in Southern MD. Not much goes on except down at the old State House in St. Mary's county. At one of my former jobs, I used to attend that as a representative of my boss and it was invariably cold/rainy and/or snowing. What I recall most of all other than my favorite blue heels sinking into the soggy grass was that inside the stone State House it was bitter cold. In Annapolis, they make a fuss in the House and Senate as our General Assembly is in session then.

It's been interesting to me to find that a lot of my ex-husband's family lived down in Southern MD but didn't arrive from England and Scotland til the 1700s.
 
In my town, we have Main Street Days in May which is 3 days to celebrate our town.

In September, we have Grapefest which celebrates the town's wine heritage. We even have a grape stomping contest at that one.

I used to really enjoy the festivals, but they have become very commercialized in the last few years.
 
We used to have a lot of Cinco de Mayo celebrations here in our Valley on May 5th. The grocery stores would have big sales and there would be all kinds of activities going on at parks and such. We never went to any of the activities but I always loved the festive feeling of everything. The colors in the store ads and in the stores themselves with their displays, etc. I think it has kind of become more subdued since all the immigration stuff has happened though. It doesn't seem to feel like such a big thing anymore. So sad. It's a heritage thing and we have a lot of people here who should still be celebrating it.

We also have Merry Main Street in December. They have several blocks of Main Street blocked off for vendor booths and performances and activities. Santa is usually there.

And then in the spring we have the Easter Pageant on the big front lawn at the Mesa Arizona Temple that runs for a week. They set up hundreds of chairs and people come early to get a good seat. If you don't then it's a standing room only thing left for you. Or bring a blanket and find some lawn space on the slopes where they can't put chairs. Some families bring a picnic dinner to eat while they wait for it to start. It is a huge thing. As well as the Christmas lights in December there on the Temple grounds. Thousands of beautiful lights all over the grounds. It takes weeks to get them all set up ready to go. They have a musical performance for about a half an hour or so each evening in December and there is usually a Nativity display in one of the big rooms at the Visitors Center. Nativities from all around the world for us to look at. I always loved to go see the lights as part of our family Christmas Eve celebration. But we usually have to park a block or more away from the grounds and I'm not able to do a lot of walking anymore. By the time we walk from the car to the grounds and then all around to look at everything and back to the car I'm just in so much pain. So we don't go like we used to do and that makes me sad. But thousands of people come for both the Easter and the Christmas events. It's a really big thing.
 
no, I don't think so. The town of Dublin does a big St. Patrick's Day parade, cuz its name is ... Dublin.

SF has a pretty big Chinese New Year parade.

All the bars capitalize on Cinco de Mayo but nothing civilly planned.

Our town does a 4th of July parade and other small town celebrations for different "regular" holidays
 
We live on the border of Quebec and Ontario. Quebec's national holiday is St-Jean Baptiste Day on June 24. I used to work on the Quebec side and got that day off work. There is also a Fête Franco-Ontarien that happens on this side of the border in June. Also, in August, there is a more local event called "Bytown Days". Ottawa was originally called "Bytown". It's not a holiday, but there is a lot of fun activities downtown by the Rideau Canal.
 
bestcee said:
But it got me wondering. Does your town/city/state/province have a celebration day for something unique to it?
Click to expand...
I have no idea. Like, literally, none. :think Having said that, DH wants to take our kids to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade "someday" (meaning: in the next year or two), but that's sooooo busy, and it makes me nervous! (We don't live in NY but we're kind of near NY, so he thinks it'd be "easy" to go to the parade. I think he's insane.)
 
I'm not sure what celebrations my city does or even my suburb so when it happens it will be a surprise.
 
Back
Top