Seeing a dragon parade the streets of San Francisco or New York this time of year might not be shocking, being the symbol of Chinese New Year, which began several days ago, with festivities continuing for about two more weeks…. Read More ›
Winter (begins with January)
Mobile Mardi Gras: Alabama’s French Catholic Holiday First-in-the-Nation
There may not be a trace of French in the Deep South accent of Alabamians and New Orleans may seem to have the lock on Mardi Gras, but it all started as a Catholic holiday in the first French colonial… Read More ›
Five First Families Celebrate New Year’s Eve
If Presidents and First Ladies seem to exclusively spend the Christmas holiday with members of their family, most of those in the last sixty years have celebrated New Year’s Eve with their friends, and almost always away from the White… Read More ›
What Were Those Leprechauns Thinking?
Whether or not flesh-and-blood Leprechauns really do exist in the woodlands of Ireland, they have cropped up in ceramic forms, populating gift shops in the United States ever since the 1960s, when St. Patrick’s Day started to become an annual… Read More ›
Kitschy, Kitschy Cute: Interpreting Old Valentine’s Day Vases
Kitschy, Kitschy Cute. Throughout the Fifties and early Sixties, before they were sent in cheap papier-mâché and then expensive colored-glass vases, sweethearts sent Valentine’s Day flowers in highly-breakable ceramic ones with that once-ubiquitous label “Made in Japan.” How many ways… Read More ›
The White House New Year’s Day Reception: Good Riddance to a Miserable Tradition
Resolutions, college football bowl games, parades, gym renewals, and January first’s first-born child: New Year’s Day customs give people hope, happiness or distraction. Swollen feet, pneumonia and confrontation do not. Which explains the silent death of the legendary White House… Read More ›
Old-School New Year’s Day Food: From the South, North or Midwest – its Imported
Holidays, as celebrated throughout the United States, are closely tied to annual feasts of traditional foods. Thanksgiving has its turkey and pumpkin pie, Christmas its goose, Hanukah its fried potato pancakes, St. Patrick’s Day is usually marked with plates of… Read More ›
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