Obscure local/regional/national holidays...

[tcufrog]

We started discussing them in the COVID and the rest of us thread and decided we wanted a thread dedicated to the topic.

Here's mine. Rodeo Day. The kids at DS9's school get dressed up in cowboy/cowgirl clothes and get out of school early to go to the city's livestock show and rodeo. The school buys a block of rodeo tickets and the students and their parents sit together. All the kids cheer when the school's name is announced. Afterwards, everyone visits the animals and rides the rides. Unfortunately, it's been canceled due to COVID. It hasn't been canceled since it started in 1896.

 

[easyas123]

Where I live in MD we have a Tea Party every Memorial Day weekend, going on 25 years I think. Pretty big weekend long party in town - featuring of course, some reenactment of the Tea Party or parts of it - huge down town do-do as well.

I grew up watching the Mummers Parade (Philly) on TV every New Years Day, and I really enjoyed it. Now our local TV station comes out of Baltimore, not Philly so I don't get it.

Rodeo Day.

I grew up in the town next to Cowtown, NJ. Fun times!

 

[RamblingMad]

GA has two interesting ones. Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E Lee’s b day. My significant other got both days off when we lived there.

 

[CynBeth]

Where I live in MD we have a Tea Party every Memorial Day weekend, going on 25 years I think. Pretty big weekend long party in town - featuring of course, some reenactment of the Tea Party or parts of it - huge down town do-do as well.

I grew up watching the Mummers Parade (Philly) on TV every New Years Day, and I really enjoyed it. Now our local TV station comes out of Baltimore, not Philly so I don't get it.



I grew up in the town next to Cowtown, NJ. Fun times!

I am in MD as well have never heard of it. That sounds nice. What part are you?

 

[VandVsmama]

All schools in the Tucson, Arizona area usually get about 3 days off of school in February for the rodeo (Fiesta de los Vaqueros). But you don't get any days off of school for Presidents' Day.

 

[easyas123]

GA has two interesting ones. Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E Lee’s b day. My significant other got both days off when we lived there.

The HS my husband attended was closed for the first day of deer season (both bow & shotgun I think) - this was in the late 80's in western MD.

I can recall friends bringing bows & guns in vehicles to go hunting after school - and I graduated in 91. My how times have changed.

 

[easyas123]

Eastern Shore-
I'm in northern QA County - Tea Party festival is in Chestertown.

 

[easyas123]

I am in MD as well have never heard of it. That sounds nice. What part are you?

Eastern Shore-
I'm in northern QA County - Tea Party festival is in Chestertown.

 

[NotUrsula]

Missouri has Truman Day on May 8th. State offices are all closed and also some schools (it gets more observation in the Kansas City area than elsewhere in the state.

 

[bavaria]

Thanks! Fun thread I didn't realise this video was on YouTube, but I spotted myself a few times from last year. Sadly most runs have been cancelled this year.

This one was offficially the 'Krampuslauf', which has unfortunately getting smaller each year. But there are a lot of Perchten there, not Krampus'. And sadly this year too many have already been cancelled.

Krampus is not actually native to Munich (and last year I spent the afternoon with a random couple from Garching, just outside the city, and the wife had never heard of it. It's only in a very, very small area of Upper Bavaria, Salzburgerland in Austria, and I think a bit of Czechia.) Until Time magazine did a story in the early 1990's, this was very much a local tradition not known outside what used to be secluded valleys. Every village has it's own style of creature and costume, and my favourites are actually the 'moss people' which look like old people made of moss (I'll post a picture if I can find one online)

https://www.salzburgerland.com/en/krampus-and-perchten/
The tradition has been sanitized in recent years, but when I was younger, like @Karin1984 says about Sinterklaas, we were sent home early on the afternoon of December 5th. But this was not to stuff ourselves with cookies and sweets like our northern neighbours, or to put out a boot or shoe for Nikolaus to leave us treats. This was because the young men would dress up in sheepskin, masks with horns, and cow bells around their waists, and at dusk begin the search for young women. They would then whip them quite forcefully with birch or other wood whips to make them more fertile. This continued until the end of day on the 6th. Because this became sometimes quite violent, and more of a drinking fest for the men, it in recent years has become more of a community thing with villages spending a lot of time during the year planning and getting ready for the 'march'. Many used to travel to Munich for this as well, where it used to be 3 Advent weekends but is now just 1 Advent Sunday.

 

[easyas123]

bavaria -

That sounds like a whole bunch of fun! Hope you get to experience it again soon.
I'd love to see that sometime myself -

 

[#1hoosierfan]

Schools in Louisville and southern Indiana surrounding Louisville get the day before Derby off. Some businesses have it as a holiday too.

 

[CynBeth]

Eastern Shore-
I'm in northern QA County - Tea Party festival is in Chestertown.

I am in Baltimore County and we usually get to the Renaissance Festival and Maryland State Fair every year. It felt weird not attending this summer.

 

[easyas123]

Baltimore County

Small world...I'm working on a project in Woodstock.

 

[spiders]

—

 

[georgina]

SW PA the kids got the first day of deer season off school for many years. Not sure if they still do. It was the Monday after Thanksgiving so was an added benefit for those of us who don't hunt.

My DD went to college in California and Cesar Chavez Day March 31 is a holiday there. I know Patriot's Day in April is a holiday in Maine and Massachusetts, and DC emancipation day is April 16.

 

[chickapin parterre]

Mt. Angel, Oregon, Oktobert fest , second week in september, close down school for the week as town shuts off streets to put up tents, vendor booths.

Mt. Angel is known for its annual Oktoberfest. The Mt. Angel Oktoberfest is the largest of its kind in the Pacific Northwest.[10] Attendance grew from 39,000 in its first year, 1966, to 375,000 by the late 1980s.[10] The Oktoberfest features beer and wine gardens, sports tournaments and races, arts and crafts exhibits, a farmers market, community dinners featuring sausage and sauerkraut, and a wide assortment food, games, and entertainment.[10]

highest attended event in Oregon..works because there are 6 roads that lead into the town, two agricultre fields must remain grass for parking, four days long and parking has never been a problem

daughter and her beer master husband, bought a house there...so they could be there all 4 days and walk to the event. Town is actually very small and some what disappointing in German architecture, but they try....and may be the only post office that displays a different nation coat of colors in the US. Points of interest is the abbey and stainglass window on the church of Joseph carrying a cat carrier. If your spouse is not into beer, then Silverton is next door, just down the road...the city with a twist!!!!....a famous resident who died from the Titanic ...and wasn't even on board.

 

[bavaria]

Mt. Angel is known for its annual Oktoberfest.

 

[diznygirl]

We started discussing them in the COVID and the rest of us thread and decided we wanted a thread dedicated to the topic.

Here's mine. Rodeo Day. The kids at DS9's school get dressed up in cowboy/cowgirl clothes and get out of school early to go to the city's livestock show and rodeo. The school buys a block of rodeo tickets and the students and their parents sit together. All the kids cheer when the school's name is announced. Afterwards, everyone visits the animals and rides the rides. Unfortunately, it's been canceled due to COVID. It hasn't been canceled since it started in 1896.

Here in Osceola County, Florida we get Rodeo Day off from school in February instead of a Presidents Day.

 

[Simba's Mom]

I believe that Massachusetts and Maine are the only two states in the US that celebrate Patriot's Day, the third Monday in April. Actually, in Massachusetts we usually celebrated it as Boston Marathon day. But hopefully, most people knew it was really Patriots Day. Obscure holiday? What about Woodstock Fair day? In Woodstock, Ct., the schools get the Friday before Labor Day off because it's the first day of the Woodstock Fair, a very big tradition in Woodstock and lots of the kids are also involved in bringing their cows, farm equipment, various entries, etc. to the fair.