Category:Holidays and Festivals

From Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers

Ancient Displaced Seasonal Festivals

In addition to the eight festivals marked on the Wheel of the Year, there are other ancient Pagan festivals which either did not originally fall on one of these eight dates or which have been displaced to other dates as a result of the conflation of European Pagan and Christian traditions.

One such "displaced" festival is Krampusnacht (Krampus' Night), an Austrian, Czech, and German Winter festival. It is unknown at this late date whether the pre-Christian Pagan festival of Krampus, also known regionally as Cert, originally fell at Yule-Time or not; some assume that it did. In any case, it long ago became mingled with the veneration of the Catholic Saint Nicholas on December 5 - 6, about half a month before the Winter Solstice, which is marked on the Wheel of the Year as the Pagan and Neo-Pagan festival of Yule.

Another "displaced" festival is Thanksgiving. The term refers to any one of a series of festivals celebrated according to the local timing of important regional harvests. Three of the festivals on the Wheel of the Year are harvest or Thanksgiving festivals -- Lammas (August 1 - 2, the grain harvest), Mabon (September 20 - 24, the wine harvest), and Samhain (October 31 - November 2, the root-crop harvest). To further complicate the matter, local customs and laws have decreed that in Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October, between Mabon and Samhain, while in the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the third Thursday of November, between Samhain and Yule, long after the last harvests have actually been brought in.

Holidays

Thanksgiving (US and Canada)

Krampusnacht (Europe)

Festivals

Strawberry Festival (Texas)

Commemorative Celebrations

Founders Day (AISC)

Fourth of July (US)

Cinco de Mayo (Mexico)

Juneteenth (US)

Labor Day (US)

May Day (International Worker's Day)