I’m 36, and for as long as I can remember, Columbus Day has been little more than an excuse for the Post Office and banks to have a day off. Oh, and and in years past furniture stores would have a sale on Columbus Day. Has Columbus Day ever been taken seriously as a holiday, or has it pretty much always been a non-event?
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Since we don’t have definitions of “taken seriously” or “non-event” that could give this question an objective answer, I think it fits better in IMHO.
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It used to be a school holiday, and probably still is in some places. I know the plant where I worked in the 90s this holiday was effectively “swapped” for MLK’s birthday. A lot of folks there weren’t too happy about that, mainly because the weather in early October is usually better than the weather in late January. If only MLK had been born in a better time of the year.
I have the day off, and I’m a software engineer in private industry.
Do most of the people in your area have the day off? Where are you?
I just walked out to the mailbox for the third time, but still no mail. Bah!
I also have the day off. Same industry.
Back in the 60s, it was a day everyone had off. Even retail stores were closed.
It remained so through high school. By that time, more stores remained open for sales and retail workers no longer had it.
I haven’t had it off since I went to college in 1970.
It really depends on what you mean by a real holiday - if you mean that almost everyone (including retail workers ) has off, you’re probably down to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and even those are iffy. If you mean a day that is celebrated in any way, whether Columbus Day qualifies probably depends on where you live. There are a number of parades in the NYC and the one which marches up Fifth Avenue is televised.
It depends on where you live and where you work.
I didn’t even know about Columbus Day until I moved to NJ in my mid-20s. In Georgia, it was not a recognized holiday. The state didn’t observe it and we still had to go to school. But it wasn’t like this in NJ. It was a “real” holiday there, with parades and all that.
I’m in VA now. I have the day off, as a state employee, but I do think kids had to go to school today (though I’m not 100% sure). There are no parades here, though. We save our parades for Jackson-Lee Day (just kidding).
I have today off. I’m a…well…software engineer in private industry. 
Our direct competitor down the street does NOT have the day off. I"m pretty sure we get it because we’re a Canadian company, and we’re really celebrating Thanksgiving.
-D/a
I think what the OP is talking about is whether or not people are really celebrating the occasion as special outside of the fact that many people get the day off and some institutions are closed.
E.g., Halloween is a “real holiday” in the US in the sense that large numbers of people consider it to be a special day and actually have some sort of themed activity or celebration on that day, but it is rarely a day off for anyone (I can’t remember ever getting Halloween off).
Columbus Day, if I understand the OP’s view, is that it’s just a generic “day off” on which people do whatever they feel like - sleep in, go on a date, visit their sister in Baltimore, or play video games, rather than actually celebrating anything associated with Columbus.
I get next Tuesday off for Alaska Day. Columbus Day isn’t even mentioned on our official calendar. Depending on your definition of “real” I would say no.
I was pretty much unaware of it growing up in Philadelphia. My wife says it was a school holiday in NY. I believe it is a pretty serious holiday in Mass. Although my daughter who went to college in Mass. says the town (Williamstown) was closed, but the school operated as usual.
Here is Canada it is, as someone already mentioned, Thanksgiving. With turkey and all the rest.
My union traded Columbus Day as a fixed holiday for Malcolm X’s birthday as a floating holiday back around 1990. No joke :).
I wouldn’t normally care one way or the other, a holiday is a holiday far as I’m concerned. I’d take Arbor Day, Groundhog Day, Boxing Day or Shub-Niggurath “Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young” Day without a qualm. But in this case I lost the opportunity for overtime pay by going from a fixed holiday to a floater.
Ah, well. The hell with the Niña, Pinta and Santa María anyway ;).
I think it is more of a ‘real’ holiday in places which have deciduous trees and people use the day to go leaf peeping. In most of the rest of the country, the holiday is a soapbox for Native American activists and a day off for the Post Office.
In Chicago (where there was actually a parade today), it’s still a pretty big deal. Not too many private businesses are closed, but many banks are (as are most schools). It’s fundamentally “Italian-American Heritage Day” here, in the same way that St. Patrick’s Day is “Irish-American Heritage Day” (and “Drink Beer Until You Barf Day”), and Casimir Pulaski Day (yes, it’s a holiday here in Chicago) is “Polish-American Heritage Day”.
I was thinking it was linked to the number of Italian Americans living there, and perhaps the age of the state.
That’s why I figured it was a big deal in NJ and NY.
I’m a a teacher and those assholes made us have an inservice day. 