Do some parts of the USA have their own separate holidays?

Well, most TV shows I watch are american so I know about Thanksgiving, 4th of July etc. Apparently, from watching shows, I don’t see that much regional variations in celebrating Christmas or Halloween. :confused:
Do some states have their own holidays ie get time off from school/work?
Do some states have their own way of celebrating the traditional holidays.

Massachusetts and Maine have April 19th for Patriots Day (not to be confused with the recent September 11th Patriot Day).

Massachusetts has a bunch of them: Patriot’s Day, as Annie-Xmas said, Bunker Hill Day and Evacuation Day.

Illionois has Pulaski Day.

Many rural counties in the Great Lakes region close school and government offices for the first day of gun deer hunting season.

A bunch of Southern states consider Jefferson Davis Day as an official holiday.

Though not official, St. Joseph’s Day and Dyngus Day are celebrated with vigor in Buffalo, and it’s considered quite acceptable to take off work on those days.

EDIT: Bunker Hill Day and Evacuatin Day are official only around the Boston area.

There’s a certain list of Federal holidays, legislated by Congress and honored as holidays across the entire country. Each state (and our one commonwealth, Puerto Rico) has the right of adding holidays to that list for their own state, and many if not all do. Here’s a list from InformationPlease.com:

* Jan. 6, Three Kings' Day: P.R.
* Jan. 8, Battle of New Orleans Day: La.
* Jan. 11, De Hostos's Birthday: P.R.
* Jan. 19, Robert E. Lee's Birthday: Ark., Fla., Ky., La., S.C.; (third Mon.): Ala., Miss.
* Jan. 19, Confederate Heroes Day: Tex.
* Jan. (third Mon.), Lee-Jackson-King Day: Va.
* Jan. 30, F. D. Roosevelt's Birthday: Ky.
* Feb. 15, Susan B. Anthony's Birthday: Fla., Minn.
* March (first Tues.), Town Meeting Day: Vt.
* March 2, Texas Independence Day: Tex.
* March (first Mon.), Casimir Pulaski's Birthday: Ill.
* March 17, Evacuation Day: Mass. (in Suffolk County)
* March 20 (first day of spring), Youth Day: Okla.
* March 22, Abolition Day: P.R.
* March 25, Maryland Day: Md.
* March 26, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Day: Hawaii
* March (last Mon.), Seward's Day: Alaska
* April 2, Pascua Florida Day: Fla.
* April 13, Thomas Jefferson's Birthday: Ala., Okla.
* April 16, De Diego's Birthday: P.R.
* April (third Mon.), Patriots' Day: Maine, Mass.
* April 21, San Jacinto Day: Tex.
* April 22, Arbor Day: Nebr.
* April 22, Oklahoma Day: Okla.
* April 26, Confederate Memorial Day: Fla., Ga.
* April (fourth Mon.), Fast Day: N.H.
* April (last Mon.), Confederate Memorial Day: Ala., Miss.
* May 1, Bird Day: Okla.
* May 8, Truman Day: Mo.
* May 11, Minnesota Day: Minn.
* May 20, Mecklenburg Independence Day: N.C.
* June (first Mon.), Jefferson Davis's Birthday: Ala., Miss.
* June 3, Jefferson Davis's Birthday: Fla., S.C.
* June 3, Confederate Memorial Day: Ky., La.
* June 9, Senior Citizens Day: Okla.
* June 11, King Kamehameha I Day: Hawaii
* June 15, Separation Day: Del.
* June 17, Bunker Hill Day: Mass. (in Suffolk County)
* June 19, Emancipation Day: Tex.
* June 20, West Virginia Day: W.Va.
* July 17, Muñoz Rivera's Birthday: P.R.
* July 24, Pioneer Day: Utah
* July 25, Constitution Day: P.R.
* July 27, Barbosa's Birthday: P.R.
* Aug. (first Sun.), American Family Day: Ariz.
* Aug. (first Mon.), Colorado Day: Colo.
* Aug. (second Mon.), Victory Day: R.I.
* Aug. 16, Bennington Battle Day: Vt.
* Aug. (third Friday), Admission Day: Hawaii
* Aug. 27, Lyndon B. Johnson's Birthday: Tex.
* Aug. 30, Huey P. Long Day: La.
* Sept. 9, Admission Day: Calif.
* Sept. 12, Defenders' Day: Md.
* Sept. 16, Cherokee Strip Day: Okla.
* Sept. (first Sat. after full moon), Indian Day: Okla.
* Oct. 10, Leif Eriksson Day: Minn.
* Oct. 10, Oklahoma Historical Day: Okla.
* Oct. 18, Alaska Day: Alaska
* Oct. 31, Nevada Day: Nev.
* Nov. 4, Will Rogers Day: Okla.
* Nov. (week of the 16th), Oklahoma Heritage Week: Okla.
* Nov. 19, Discovery Day: P.R.
* Dec. 7, Delaware Day: Del.

I think it’s likely that all states recognize certain anniversaries and commemorative days in addition to your typical “federally-recognized” holidays. Whether or for which ones state workers get the day off varies. In Texas, San Jacinto Day (April 21) and Texas Independence Day (March 2) are both state worker holidays.

Admission Day is celebrated by very, very few people in California. The state added Cesar Chavez’s Birthday as a holiday a couple of years ago. It is celebrated on either the last Monday in March or on March 31 (his actual birthday).

As far as the major holidays, there really isn’t much regional variation. The food might vary a bit, and there may be some isolated local traditions, but mostly a Christmas in Maine is going to look a lot like a Christmas in California.

Why is that? Part of it is that many Americans live relatively isolated lives compared to their overseas counterparts. The “ideal” is a house in the suburbs, seperated from your neighbors by wide yards, inhabited by only your immediate family (husband, wife, children.) There isn’t a lot of public and community space for local traditions to pop up in. Most holidays are considered to be “family time”, not public time.

But there is a lot of advertising and television- both national forces. A lot of our holiday traditions- from watching the parade on Thanksgiving morning to the popular image of Santa Claus, are from advertisment and television. There are many huge forces at work that want us all to celebrate the same way- the way that involves giving their company money. In most things you won’t find a lot of variation from state to state- the same hotels, the same stores, the same restraunts, the same ranch-style suburban homes. In many areas- especially the newer mall-centered suburbs that many Americans live in- region is more of a “flavor” than a “main course”

Another part is that many Americans feel only a loose affiliation with their state. While someone might feel like a “Southerner” or a “Midwesterner”, it’s pretty common to live in a few states in the course of your lifetime. Probably half the people you meet in California were born in some other state. America’s history doesn’t go back to far, and has always been full of people moving around to find better lives. It’s no big deal to move somewhere where there are more jobs or even somewhere where you like the climate better. So we don’t have as strong a tie to the state we were born in as people in places where your ancestry goes back in one area for generations.

So, not surprisingly, the most variations on holidays are going to be ethnic, not regional. It’s not to hard to Mexican Christmas traditions in California- from tamale making to La Posada. Lunar New Year and Cinco de Mayo are both pretty big deals around here, with parades and special events.

it’s required to have a fish fry to celebrate every friday.

:wink: Well it is!

neither a national, nor yet a state holiday, let’s not forget Talk like a pirate day (September 19th)

Shortly after going to work for the State of Vermont years ago, I was surprised to get a day off for Battle of Benni!ngton Day!

Residents of Louisville (Kentucky) often have Oaks Day off work and schools are closed. (Oaks Day is the Friday before the Kentucky Derby, which is the big local event and which takes place the first Saturday in May.)

When I was growing up, I lived in several different states, and the biggest local variation I saw was Easter. In some states, schools are closed Easter Monday, while in other places, schools are closed Good Friday. In most places now, though, there is no time off for Easter at all, although some areas happen to schedule spring vacation around then.

Interesting…the best of my recollection was that the state I grew up in (New York) doesn’t have any holidays of its’ own, and your list seems to confirm that.

Patriot’s Day still throws me, and I have lived in Mass. for 18 years now. (A holiday for a football team? Even when they used to suck?)

FYI, noone hereabouts calls June 19 “Emancipation Day.” It’s best known as “Juneteenth.”

That said, many people all over the place celebrate Evacuation Day by drinking green beer and dressing up in green clothes :smiley:

Not a holiday, but when I moved to Kansas for school, I was surprised to see a lot of kids go home for a few weeks a year for “harvest”. Professors usually understood this and could adjust scheduling accordingly.

The first day of deer season is pretty big in many rural areas. Some school districts even have the day off.

Easter - the financial services firms in Manhattan suddenly have a very high percentage of people celebrating their jewish faith. It’s been almost a decade since I was in the biz, but it was good friday or some other event around Easter that is not an official holiday but individuals get for religious reasons. Also, not to sound snarky as know that for many people it is a very important religious event, but there were quite a few that I knew who were completely non practicing assimilated Jews that decided a day off was a day off.

Being brought up in Georgia, I always thought it was funny that the same state workers that would show up at protests over the state flag, bemoaning its “racist past” and decrying it as an “insult to African-Americans” nevertheless had no problem taking Confederate Memorial Day or Jefferson Davis’ Birthday as a holiday.

This was a couple of decades ago though - I dunno if state workers still get those two days off.

The school I first taught in permitted any teacher or student of the Jewish faith to take off holy days such as Yom Kippur and Rosh Hoshanah without penalty. One of my fellow teachers was Jewish by birth but was emphatically not religious, did not keep kosher, etc., but she did take these days off. I commented that this did not seem right, since she was not doing religious things on those days, just sleeping in or whatever. She said that if she did NOT take those days, it would be insulting to other Jews who were actually observing the day. :confused: