The first day of January became New Year's Day with the calendar reforms of the sixteenth century, although the date has no relation to solar, lunar, or seasonal cycles. English Protestant colonists in North America opposed celebration on this day because of its pagan associations. By the time of the Revolution, however, most Americans followed traditional European customs and spent the day visiting, dining, and distributing money and food to roving gangs of drunk and disorderly young men.

As the importance of Christmas grew, New Year's Day declined, although it is one of the ten national legal holidays. New Year's Day often serves as a day of recovery from New Year's Eve parties at which some celebrants overindulge in alcohol while they count the minutes to midnight and the beginning of the new year. Many Americans spend New Year's Day watching televised parades that precede college football games named for various festivals, such as the Rose Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, and the Orange Bowl. Some Americans eat special foods on New Year's Day, for example, black-eyed peas, which are associated with prosperity in the coming year; others write lists of resolutions for the new year in an attempt to improve their behavior.

Since 1863, when President Lincoln issued his final Emancipation Proclamation, some African Americans have observed January 1 as Emancipation Day, celebrating with parades, speeches, and prayer. The creation in 1983 of a legal holiday on or near January 15 to honor assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., has diverted attention from the January 1 emancipation celebration. Juneteenth, on June 19, is celebrated as emancipation day in Oklahoma and Texas because it was the day on which slaves received the news that they were free.

An unofficial day of celebration that some might argue dominates other January events is the Super Bowl, a professional football championship that typically attracts the largest television audience of the year. Held on the fourth Sunday of January since 1967, it is heavily promoted by commercial sponsors who hope to sell their products to viewers. Considering the billions of dollars spent on related tickets, merchandise, and gambling, the Super Bowl and other professional sporting events are significant in the annual cycle of American festivals.

The celebration of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana, overshadows all other Shrove Tuesday festivals. Followed by Ash Wednesday, Mardi Gras occurs in February or March and begins a forty-day period of fasting, observed by many Christians, before Easter Sunday. Since the 1850s, social clubs known as krewes, have sponsored parades and dances featuring elaborately costumed and masked participants. Thousands of tourists crowd the city in what has become an annual pilgrimage for some.

St. Valentine's Day, celebrated on February 14, is, like New Year's, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas, a European festival that has been Americanized. A growing middle class in the 1840s launched a fad for sending cards, flowers, and candy as expressions of love and friendship. By the 1850s the custom was so commercialized that some began to mock it by sending comic and risqu� valentines, which remain popular. The exchange of valentines was expanded by schoolteachers who encouraged children to make them as class projects and by the aggressive marketing of the greeting card industry. February 14 is also the birthday of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass and it marks the beginning of Black History Week, observed in most American public schools.

The focus on history and race relations during February is rooted in two holidays, the birthdays of Presidents Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and George Washington (February 22), celebrated separately until 1971 when they were combined into Presidents' Day (called Washington's Birthday in some states and Washington-Lincoln Day in others), a national holiday observed on the third Monday in February. Although some communities still mark the observance with patriotic speeches by public officials, most Americans associate the day with department-store sales.

Easter and Passover, Christian and Jewish religious holidays respectively, occur between the beginning of March and the end of April. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion and death; Passover commemorates the exodus of Jews from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. Easter Sunday remains a holy day for Christians, but since the 1840s it has been increasingly secularized into a spring festival with an emphasis on floral decorations, parades of people in new clothing, and the decorating of eggs. Children are told that Easter eggs are hidden by the Easter Bunny and elaborate hunts for the eggs are organized by parents, churches, and even the staff of the White House. Passover has been less commercialized; instead focus is on the seder, a ceremonial meal that marks the beginning of the holiday and is an occasion for American Jewish families and friends to gather.

Two other days celebrated in April reflect interesting aspects of American culture. April Fool's Day, April 1, is an ancient and global custom involving the playing of pranks on the unwary. This custom is more common among children, although many adults who enjoy practical jokes take advantage of the occasion. College newspapers often use the day as an excuse to lampoon professors and administrators. April 22, Earth Day, has replaced Arbor Day, a holiday that originated in Nebraska in 1872 to encourage the planting of trees for future forests. As the environmental movement expanded its concerns from parks and forests to air and water pollution, endangered species, and global warming, Congress responded by passing new environmental legislation in 1970, which was celebrated by the creation of Earth Day. This day became the occasion for lectures, fairs, community litter clean-ups, and rallies calling attention to the importance of the environment.

May Day, celebrated on May 1, has a long history of conflicting celebrations. Observed in most of the world as a workers' festival, it remains a folk festival celebrating the beginning of summer. In the United States May Day receives little attention, eclipsed by the Kentucky Derby horse race held on the first Sunday in May. The Kentucky Derby has become a national event, drawing tourists and media attention to Louisville from all over the world. A ten-day Derby festival includes public and private parties, popular music concerts, the election of a queen, and parades. For a nation that claims to be a democracy and advocates equality, the Kentucky Derby, which flaunts wealth and social class, is an anomaly, and, like Halloween, an inversion of the normal standards.

Mother's Day, the second Sunday in May, is the invention of Anna Reeves Jarvis of West Virginia. Proclaimed a holiday by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914, it was originally intended to honor the mothers of men who had fought against one another in the Civil War. Florists, the greeting card industry, and long-distance telephone companies seized the opportunity to sell their products and services, however, and Mrs. Jarvis's desire for simple observance was forgotten. At almost the same time a movement for Father's Day was begun, but the idea took much longer to gain support. In the 1920s the toy industry tried to promote the third Sunday in June as Children's Day, but it lost that date to Father's Day, which is now celebrated by some families with cards and presents.

Memorial Day, officially May 30 but celebrated on the nearest Monday, was created at the end of the Civil War to honor those who had died in the war. Some Southern states celebrate on other days, but Memorial Day has grown in significance with each succeeding war. Memorial Day ritual includes the laying of a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Tomb of the Unknowns since 1958) in Arlington National Cemetery, but there are parades and religious services in almost every American community. Since 1920 the Indianapolis 500 automobile race has become the event most Americans associate with Memorial Day. Like the Kentucky Derby, the race is a ritual that many Americans try to watch either in person or on television. The three-day weekend also marks the unofficial beginning of summer.

Independence Day, July 4, has, since the end of the Revolutionary War, been the premier national holiday. Celebrated for over two hundred years with patriotic speeches, parades, picnics, and pyrotechnics, the day is especially important in presidential election years since the Republican and Democratic Party conventions are held a few weeks later. Groups who feel they have been denied the rights promised in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution often use the day to protest. In the western states, the Fourth of July is celebrated with rodeos and Native American powwows.

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, was created by union workers in New York City in 1882 to display class solidarity. In 1894 it was made a legal holiday by an act of Congress, a remarkable achievement considering the antilabor attitudes of many politicians. Traditionally celebrated with speeches, parades, and picnics, it marks back-to-school time and the end of summer. With the continuing decline of organized labor, the day has lost some of its distinctive rituals.

Columbus Day, October 12 but celebrated on the second Monday of the month, commemorates the European arrival in the Americas. It was not until the early twentieth century, however, that the day was recognized by federal and state governments as a holiday. Italian Americans were especially active in promoting a day to honor Genoa-born explorer Christopher Columbus, and the creation of this holiday was a tribute to their political strength. The increase in immigrants from Latin America since the 1960s has resulted in the renaming of Columbus Day to D�a de la Raza ("Day of the Race") in some parts of the country, and the day is now an occasion to celebrate mestizos (people of European and Native American ancestry).

Halloween, October 31, is a relic of pagan harvest festivals celebrated on the eve of All Saints' Day, a Christian holy day, but it has been transformed significantly in the United States since World War II. Halloween is a festival that focuses on symbolic images of death such as skulls, skeletons, and ghosts. Despite episodes of nighttime vandalism, most Americans regard Halloween as a time for youngsters to masquerade as cowboys, princesses, and pirates and walk from door to door in their neighborhoods asking for candy. This "trick-or-treat" ritual reached a peak in the 1960s, but concern for the safety of children has led to stricter adult control. Although not an official holiday, Halloween has become one of the most celebrated days of the year, with elaborate costumes, parades for children and adults, and public and private parties. Since 1987 the gay and lesbian community of Greenwich Village in New York City has led the nation in transforming Halloween into a spectacular parody of American life, featuring an exuberant costume parade.

Election Day, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, is not now a national holiday. In the colonial era and early nineteenth century, election days were marked by special sermons, political debate, and feasting, even though only a small percentage of white males could vote. Political reforms, the expansion of the electorate, and the rise of the electronic media have changed the nature of election days, but they remain important, both symbolically and for their political consequences.

Veterans' Day was originally created as Armistice Day on November 11, 1921, the third anniversary of the end of World War I. Celebrated, like Memorial Day, with a wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns, Armistice Day became Veterans' Day in 1954 after veterans from World War II and the Korean War demanded recognition. Made a federal holiday in 1968, it has gained in importance since the opening of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., on Veterans' Day in 1982, which is now the site of an annual service.

Thanksgiving Day, celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November since 1941, commemorates the first Thanksgivings held by English colonists in the early 1600s and is an occasion to give thanks for good health, bountiful food, family, and friends in the preceding year. Schoolchildren are taught about the generosity of the Native people of New England toward the Pilgrims, and many families gather to eat turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and other foods considered typically American. Many Americans make Thanksgiving a four-day holiday, and it has become the busiest travel period in the year. Since it is also considered the beginning of the Christmas season, large department stores in New York and other cities sponsor parades featuring giant balloons representing toys and cartoon characters.

Christmas, December 25, is the traditional celebration of the birth of Christ. Ignored by Puritans, the celebration of Christmas began to take on distinctive American characteristics in 1823 with the publication of Clement Moore's "The Night Before Christmas," which helped to establish Santa Claus as a mythical character who brings gifts to children who have behaved through the year. The myth of Santa proved useful to children, parents, and manufacturers of holiday goods. "Santa" appears in advertisements for toys and soft drinks, on Christmas cards, and in person in department stores, shopping malls, and on street corners, often collecting money for charities.

The American Christmas combines traditional elements such as religious services, caroling, and feasting with innovations including gift certificates, card exchanges, and children's letters to Santa. The latter activities have been studied for what they reveal about class and gender differences. Some scholars argue that Christmas is a more unifying national holiday than Independence Day because most elements in American society can agree on values of generosity and family unity, while many dispute the meaning of the Constitution.

Hanukkah, a Jewish religious holiday in December, is celebrated over an eight-day period by lighting candles (one on the first day, two on the second day, and so on) and exchanging gifts. Kwanzaa, December 26 through January 1, was created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, who wanted a celebration for African Americans that emphasized African traditions rather than American materialism. Kwanzaa is an example of attempts to renew African American family ties and group spirit through celebrations. In the 1990s a new profession, "ritual-makers," emerged to help people plan and find appropriate rituals and symbols for family reunions, birthdays, anniversaries, class reunions, and other life-cycle events. Other American celebrations include annual state and county fairs, holidays commemorating the admission of states to the union, and special religious and civic holidays for various ethnic groups.

Each holiday and celebration in the United States serves many functions and may convey different meanings to individual participants or observers. Every festival has traditions�some ancient�and each has innovations reflecting changing personnel, technology, and social context. Celebrations and holidays are important to American studies because they can be analyzed as microcosms of the larger culture. Celebrations create and maintain group or national identity, while offering playful commentary on the conditions of everyday life. Holidays and celebrations�complex and constantly evolving�reveal attitudes toward the social order, race, gender, and age.