American holidays and celebrations

CONCLUSION

Holiday celebrations in America signify the rich blending of historic traditions from other cultures with the uniquely commemorative nature of the people of the United States. The American calendar is filled with a diverse variety of holidays, and each date is a tribute to the nation's great heritage and history. American holidays may include official or federal holidays, traditional holidays, ethnic holidays, and religious holidays, yet many Americans are not familiar with the individual history behind each special day.

However, the main focus for many Americans is the group of holidays known as the Big Six. New Year's Day, Presidents’ Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are days that the majority of the nation's citizens are most familiar with. Nevertheless, each of the American holidays has its own unique and interesting origin.
It is widely known that Americans love to celebrate US holidays of all types. Various ethnic and religious groups in America celebrate days with special meaning to them even though these are not national holidays. Jews, for example, observe their high holy days in September, Muslims celebrate Ramadan, African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa, Irish Americans celebrate the old country's patron saint, St. Patrick, on March 17, and Mardi Gras is the day before the Christian season of Lent begins and is a big occasion in New Orleans, Louisiana, where huge parades and wild revels take place. There are many other such religious and ethnic celebrations in the United States.
Many Americans spend holidays with their friends and family, enjoying food, parades and games (both televised and otherwise). Though this country is still less than 250 years old, they have made up for their youth with an assortment of holidays that they love to celebrate.
Some calendar holidays in the United States are a collective grouping of traditions and cultures brought to the country by immigrants that gradually took on a distinctively American quality while others are dates of remembrance and reflection pertaining to critical events that are part of America's great history. Regardless of the national holiday, there is a special historical meaning behind each date that is just waiting to be discovered.