This is 9/11 and I am a New Yorker and for us the day is very special. only time will let us know what is and isn't remembered in the 2070's but what do you think?

My husband is English and ex-british army and always takes november 11th off, but I think many people in the US do not notice it. some fiction tells us Christmas will still be celebrated, what about July 4? Labor day? Thanksgiving? Cinquo de Mayo?Are there special Indian festivals? Will Japanese festivals for boys and girls start up in the Pac rim?

With less of a western feel will regional holidays like Masschussett's "Patriot's Day" become big?

I'm pretty sure that Christmas will stay big. I know a lot of non-Christians who celebrate it. Thanksgiving will probably stay big in both the UCAS and CAS

I don't know about July fourth. If it is improtant it would be just as important in the CAS as in the UCAS; though the CAS would probably have a cessession (sp?) day.

I'd imagine that the NAN would celebrate the anniversary of the Ghost Dance but I've never actually seen any evidence to support that. It's just something I'd wager on.

I spent a summer on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and I want to say it was the anniversary of The Battle of Little Bighorn that was a big thing out there. Fireworks, cook-outs; I was told it was basically their "4th of July", although if memory serves it took place pretty close to July 4th anyway. (Wiki confirms that Little Bighorn was in late June, so that makes sense.)

I'd imagine Volcano Day would be a pretty big celebration in the NAN as well. (At least, I called it Volcano Day when I was running a game set at a big NAN festival. There's probably a better name for it.)

Others not yet mentioned:
New Years Day
Valentines Day
Groundhog Day
Saint Patrick's Day
Equinox and Solstice days
Mardi Gras
Easter
Mother's Day
Father's Day
Halloween

I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the bigger Megacorps introduced some kind of new "holidays" of their own. After all, holiday season is always good for business, and it gives the sheeple a nice warm bellyfeel...
"Happy Fuchi-Day!"
-"Actually, I think it's Novatech-Day these days..."
"Well, it's really Neonet-Day now."
-"Yeah, whatever, here's your cake..."

Christmas and (Western) Easter are likely to stay celebrated...They're too fixed in the culture.

July 4 will become sort of like Patriots' Day in Massachusetts, but over the former US (Even in the NAN, I suspect, but mostly out of habit) - August 15 (Union Day) will be the new July 4.

...keep in mind in RL Canada, Dominion day is July 1st. So for the UCAS, maybe a compromise?

Mardi Gras and the similar carnival seasons celebrated in other parts of the world are the week before lent. Anywhere that has a sizeable Catholic population would still celebrate these.

Also, Mardi Gras itself has become so commercialized in the states that few people outside of the Catholic community actually know what it's for even though they'll celebrate it.

Awakening Day in Seattle.

I concur with Ancient History, it is said in one of the sourcebooks that Awakening Day is the only official day off in seattle and is like the third monday of December.
Christianity has no more the influence it had in america, south america is now pagan, the NAN arent christians, and the UCAS seem more corporate than religious. Maybe the CAS would be more conservative and so still christian influenced.
As for the 4th of july, i doubt it would be used as a reference for the UCAS (as it is also canada), and regarding the CAS, since they are southerners would probably celebrate former confederate states important dates, and probably their independance from the UCAS.

Since Megacorp can have their own laws, i really suppose they have their own holydays.
Japancorps arent christian influenced, so i doubt they'll have christian holydays.
SK while european, is ran by a Dragon, and i doubt Lofwyr gets along with the Vatican. Maybe the Beer feast as a day off for SK workers ?
Aztlan/Aztechnology would have pagan holydays.
Ares could have some christian holydays, but i doubt it : christianity in the 6th world is even more associated with bigotry and racism (like most 4th world major religion). I doubt a AAA would like to be associated with a religion for marketing issues, and even to have peace between co-workers.
In every case, i'd say there is not a lot of holydays in the 6th world, by that i mean "official" days off, as nations lost the power to call for one, and corps giving a day off = less cash for them.

@tisoz
I doubt St Patrick day would even be remembered or celebrated (maybe "secretly" for some ...) as Ireland is no more, and Tir Nan Og is quite hostile to the Catholic church. St Patrick is clearly a catholic Icon.

In the US today, all the holidays are becoming more and more commercialized, thanks to retailers, Hallmark and other corporations. People in my neighborhood hang up decorations, not just for Christmas and Halloween, but also for Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, the 4th of July and Thanksgiving. There is a very small Latino population around where I live but all the bars have huge specials on Cinco de Mayo (as well as Mardi Gras and St. Patrick's Day of course). The stores all have Memorial Day and Presidents' Day sales. We buy gifts for Mother's and Father's Days and every year, the Christmas shopping season seems to get even crazier.

In Shadowrun, holidays will likely become extraordinarily overcommercialized excuses to buy gifts, hang decorations and drink to excess. The corps would probably encourage this since it gets people to spend money and distracts them, bread and circuses style, from the real problems in the world. Heck, they might start making up holidays (e.g. Festivus, Love Day). Will Renraku give you Christmas off? Maybe not. But they'd gladly sell you tons of crap to put under your Christmas tree.

As for religious holidays, they are becoming more and more secular already, especially Christmas. I can totally imagine kids in 2070 wanting Easter candy and Christmas gifts, loving the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus but having no idea who that Jesus guy is.

And lastly, about the CAS. It was my impression that Shadowrun southerners saw themselves as the 'real' Americans, the rightful inheritors of the USA, rather than drawing connections to the 19th century CSA. But I could be wrong.

@treehugger
Today, St. Patrick's day has little religious meaning to most people. And I could see it being huge, at least in the UCAS, CAS and California.

St. Patrick's day is a time to celebrate being 1/8th Irish, to go watch a parade and to drink. And it's becoming even bigger now, probably from being so close to Mardi Gras and college spring break.

I see i'm not talking about the same stuff as you
I was saying that official days off would be in the hands of your employer.
I think that SR "feast days" (for me a holyday is a day you dont work ) would be numerous like you said jklst14.
Clearly every occasion would be good for the corps to have people consume more.

St Patrick isnt a religious feast anymore, but i suppose that Tir Nan Og would try to brake the tradition since it's a reminder of Ireland and of the christianisation of the island. After all, the elves are ennemy of the church, ennemy of former ireland, and even ennemies of the Druids/Priest of the old Celtic religion.
The path of the Wheel has nothing to do with the Celts, even if they try hard to make it look like it.
In Celtic double cross there are mentions of the links between the american of irish origins and the Tir, but dont remember exactly what they where.
Anyway, i'd guess the Tir would have kept the St Patrick day, put a new sperethiel name (easy to pronounce and remember) with some new age signification and give it a metaphysical/philosophical sense ... that everyone would ignore and just drink beer.
Symbols are important and powerfull (especially for wizards like the elves of Tir).

Tree hugger- St patrick's day would be celebrated. It is too much a fixture in New york and boston and other american cities with big Irish populations. It might become noted as a time for anti-elf bigotry.

I think Christmas will stay. I am not Christian and I celebrate it. It has drifted away from its religious meaning and is a sort of secular holiday.

from details people have given I think the UCAS would keep July 4. a lot of the text says that the rump of canada was grateful to be taken in and probably did not make too big a fuss when their holiday got moved a couple of days over by the bigger US.

...Fall of the Wall Day in Portland

Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and Valentine's Day would all almost certainly remain where ever they are currently observed. Religious connotations aside, they are very commercialized and would make the corps loads of money, just like they do today.

...for a recent session I wrote up a Weapons World Christmas commercial for the... .

...Lady Guardian by Savalette.
<...>
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When you want to give her the best, make sure it is from Savalette...

And from all of us at Weapons World, have a safe and secure Christmas

Christmas was definitely still celebrated (in Seattle, at least) as of 2059. Part of the reason the Arc was so packed with victims during the shutdown was that the mall levels were full of Christmas shoppers.

Which helps up the horror-quotient for that scenario (especially if you've worked holiday retail) - you just know Deus probably never shut off the piped-in Christmas carols.

You've just defined hell for Snow Fox. She's been known to complain at the local Macy's when they were playing Christmas music in October, and "offered" to vomit on a display of Hallmark tree ornaments set out in August.

Thinking about this, I think Thanksgiving would disappear entirely in the west and become a right wing reactionary celebration in the CAS and UCAS and Maybe Quebec. Today some indians complain about the holiday as "we should never have saved them" and so they would drop it. By comparrison right wingers would defend it as Norman Rockwell family values.

Just to add to it I bet NAN would have harvest festivals that would start to adopt the whole turkey, corn pumpkin trappings.

Here is a list of possible holydays, both "international" and "regional" :
International :
- Corp court establishment : all corp would celebrate such a day.
- Armistice of the Eurowars : celebrated in Europe, proably Russia and Middle East, each in their own fashions

Regional
The NANs :
- Great Phantom Dance day : celebrated in all the NANs, probably more religious holyday.
- Independance of the NANs
- Speration from the NANs for each native nations.
- Specific religious day for each tribe, totem related maybe.

Corp :
- AAA status gained (specific for each megacorp)
- Historical highest stock value's day (would be funny as it would change regulary, but nonetheless celebrated)
- Desert Wars day(s) (some form of celebration would be required to show the employees their "patriotism")

Desert Wars. The Superbowl of the corps, where they all get to show off their new technological toys?

In a world where megalithic corporations suck the life out of pretty much everyone, and where the almighty nuyen runs nearly everything, why WOULD there be holidays? Do you really think that Stuffer Shack closes on any day? (well, aside from the aforementioned Awakening Day.)

We already see this to a degree. Most holidays, the wageslaves get off work and then ... go shopping. At stores manned by employees of some (other?) corporation. Currently, Christmas and Thanksgiving (in the US) and the 4th of July are pretty much the only "universally accepted" holidays.

In the Sixth World, I imagine that while nations will surely still have holidays, it won't have as much of an impact on the general populace. Given the extraterritoriality of the corporations (Esp the AAA and AAs), any "holidays" that wageslaves might see are likely to be tied to the corporation more than the place they live.

The birthday of CEOs, the founding day for the company, the day of an IPO ... they day of a merger (or perhaps a hostile restructuring ) -- these all seem like the kinds of things I'd expect the employees of Ares, Aztechnology, etc to see. (I imagine Azzies have other holidays -- as someone said earlier, they really seem somewhat pagan.) I imagine solstices/equinoxes are VERY widely noted and followed in most awakened areas. In the dystopian sixth world, though, I suspect that for most corporations, even on "holidays" you'd be expected to work. Your performance review will suffer if Joe works overtime and you don't, etc.

I do not think companies would celebrate high values BUT if they reached a certain asset level there might be a big party one time. Sort of "Hey! We reached 10 billion net assets! Party friday, black tie." Some company's do that now and it would be great for runs.

I think it'd be enormously difficult to not have Christmas as a holiday anywhere in the Western world. The employer that did that would be beaten to a pulp in PR terms. (This does not mean that places won't be open; IRL, I live in a very mixed area religiously, and it seems basically accepted that, for example, Jewish employees get Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah off (to think of an example), and in return Christian employees get Christmas, and the scheduling thusly seems to happen without issues.) You might be open (with a reduced staff), but not giving Christmas as at least an optional day off that a majority of the company takes? Not going to happen.

Labor Day is an odd one - on the nature of the subject, you'd think 'no way'. But it's entrenched as the end of summer/beginning of the school year. I could see North American operations (regardless of specific country) throughout the former US giving that day off, as much for practical reasons as for any actual sentimentiality. (Curious factoid: the September date of Labor Day in the US was a compromise after the Haymarket Riots, basically the only reason why the US doesn't celebrate on May 1 with the rest of the world.)

Some things like that are just set. I think the Brits don't bother to come up with a name. They just declare a 'bank holiday.'

In France, Christmas is a day off, but there is no day off for other religions holydays.
People dont care why the day is off, they care because its a free day off
Regarding celebrating Christmas in Shadowrun, again, why should it be celebrated ? The Awakening is allmost at the same date why have another day so close ?
Remember that all the fluff around Christmas is really recent, it used to be just one more holyday.
In a lot of european Countries, St Nicholas day is still obeserved (and "Santa Claus" is clearly a copy of St Nicolas). In France, except for the north eastern part of the country, no one celebrate that day, and a lot never heard of it.
Christmas might be just some fashion who knows ? If we look at our recent history without trying to see the whole picture, we're blind.
Things change. 50 years is two generations from now. So i think its not imporbable to have totaly different holydays in 2050-2070 than we have today.
I still dont understand how a lot of you consider as a certitude that some things (like christmas) wont change.

From MY interpretation of the Shadowrun universe, religion is now clearly in the hands of a bunch of biggots (Vatican and the Muslim states in Middle East), while the majority of the population being at "best" agnostic. People dont believe in god anymore (see Dunkenzal's discussion on the subject) so i doubt they'd continue to celebrate religious holydays, especially when new ones have arised.
Shadowrun's culture is a mix of Japaneese, native American and relics of Anglo saxon culture.
It has nothing to do with the current dominant culture.
While the corps will have marketing services that tries to sell more and more junk, remember that the corps are dominated by the Japaneese.
Consumerism in Japan is much, much more developped than in the USA.
Their habbits of consomation are totaly different than in the USA, they dont need holydays to consume : they consume a lot, all the time)
Remember, this is a world where your employer is much more important than your country (Actualy, i was wondering : do AAA employers keep their nationality or do they get a corp "nationality" ?).
SK, Mitsuahama, Yamatetsu, Renraku, Fushi, Shiawase, Aztechnology are in no way of Anglo-Saxon culture, christian or american.

It does not matter if X-mas has lost its religious basis or if it is just seen as a day of gift giving and hope for a nicer world. X-mas exists in the SR canon.

What is November 11th?

...depends. For some it is known as Armistice Day (the end of WWI). In the US it is called Veteran's Day. Pretty much a non-holiday by the 2060s.

It is a non-holiday in the US but we have Memorial Day in the US which is in May and actually older than the European war. I think it is still important inthe UK. lots of poppy's still to be seen. I do not see that fading in the UK.

But I mean for most people it does not have meaning. On memorial day we honor the war dead. most Americans do not know about Nov. 11. I only know about it because my husband is english.

...in a government town like Olympia WA, the entire city almost shuts down on these Federal pseudo-holidays.

I don't. The brainspace that knowledge could occupy is dedicated to the details of the Treaty of Versailles, which is in my opinion a much better use for it.

I'm still trying to reclaim the brainspace Sept. 11 occupies, though annual outside reinforcement keeps it fixed for now.

~J

I think that's what she means. They insist its so not thanksgiving but that is what their family traditions are. Turkey and all the trimmings. So do they give inand say 'what the heck" or twist themselves into self loathing nots to justify this "Well the Lenape were eating pumpkin and turkey lnog before the white man. so pass the freaking drumstick bob."

I'd have to say September 19th, International Talk Like a Pirate Day
at least if there's a successor to the Gingerbread Man running around filming in the Caribbean League then there would be a pirate niche following