Cynthetiq

I was just reading the LATimes and saw the article "Runnin' with the grunion"

I grew up in LA and always heard about the grunion runs. I never ever did one.

I did however do the Santa Claus Lane Parade in Hollywood a couple of times, it's shot on the Sunday of Thanksgiving Weekend. I even got to be in it one year in High School Marching Band.

I'm scouring my brain and I cannot for the life of me come up with any other LA traditions.

So far in my almost 15 years being here in NYC, I've not done High Tea (that's a mother daughter thing really), gone to Rockefeller Center for the Tree Lighting.

I have been to Times Square for New Year's Eve countdowns on three occassions, twice for fun, once for work.

Quadro has a Xmas party the Saturday before Christmas... I love going to that.

When I started working at MTV I started a tradition of the last day of work of the calendar year, we all meet up at the local strip club. That lasted about 7 years.

Do you have any local traditions? Do you participate in them?

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Grasshopper Green

There are a few that I can think of here in Salt Lake. The main one is the Days of 47 Parade which is held on July 24, the day the Mormons arrived in Salt Lake valley. I'm not Mormon, so I have absolutely no interest in this parade.

Another is First Night, which is a big party held in the downtown area on New Years Eve. It promotes a safe, alcohol free environment for people who want to celebrate, but don't want to drink. I've been to it a few times, its pretty fun but its also outdoors and frigging freezing.

The third is the Utah Arts Festival, which is a big festival with live music, food, local artists selling their work, etc. It's really fun and I've attended it many, many times.

I'm sure there are probably more I'm forgetting, but they are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

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raeanna74

We have RodeoFest, Dairyweek, Polkafest and CrazyDays among other more obscure gatherings. There's one we've never gone to and I can't recall the name at this time. I tend to remember something like "Oktoberfest" which is basically a drinking party. Dairyweek is always kicked off by an all you can eat pancake breakfast. CrazyDays is a great weekend sale where all the local businesses pull out all the old leftover products from previous seasons and they sell them at great prices. There are a lot of brat, hot dog, and fair food stands throughout town as well. Rodeofest is pretty much self explanatory. Polkafest is a week of polka fanatics and is all at the fairgrouds thankfully.

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Daniel_

My town has an annual Bathtub Race (you make a boat out of a steel bath, and row, sail, drag, etc it from a village inland to the town centre).

I've followed it on foot by the river (about 6 miles) many times, but not for the last couple of years.

See here: www.bathtubrace.co.uk

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jaco

Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, and a festival from everything from strawberries and crawfish to oil. I actually have been burnt out on going to most of these since ive done most of them since before I can remember. Plus the fact we get more tourists than locals going to most of them and there is always some sort of drama.

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laconic1

Taste of Colorado is the first one that pops into my mind, and no, I havent participated in that.

Janey

A bunchof jazz festivals is going to take over my town. We just had the Distillery jazz festival, then there will be the Downt jazz and Blues Festival, followed by the Beaches Jazz Festival, and also North By Northeast (NXNE) is happening.

Gasp...

also the Caribana festival (a wack Caribbean fun), and the International Caravan festival is comming. Also the Molson Indy car race, and the Dragon Boat races.

But then the street festivals are good too: Taste of the Danforth (Greek food galor) is my fav and then there is Pride parade, and cap it all off with the CNE (canadian national exhibition) and the Toronto film Festival in Sept....

Rodney

We have a First Night; I've gone a few times and even volunteered, but I've stopped because it's always the same.

The town gets pretty rowdy on Halloween, and a lot of people run around downtown (where all the clubs are) in odd costumes, sometimes none at all. I've been there :-).

We've got several art and wine festivals which I consider lame and don't go to anymore. Mainly an excuse to sell stuff. There is a big artist's Open Studio tour however, countywide, with about 200 studios open, and I like to go around that and even buy stuff from time to time.

Things I don't participate in: the local "Wharf to Wharf" run in which several thousand people run about eight miles along the waterfront, the various surfing competitions and beach volleyball tourneys (I don't do either).

Seeker

There are a lot of annual tradition type deals where I live.. from 'River Fire' to Anzac Day perades. I'll only babble about these two

I have never been big on the whole Anzac Day thing as it was terrible growing up in a military household, the Vietnam thing really screwed with my Dad's head.. however I went for the first time April just gone. My daughter was marching for my grandfather, who for the first time was unable (age catching up with him). I was overwhelmed with the people who were there cheering in thanks and support for the men and women who have served and also for the people who serve now. Even though I technically had not served, I felt in some way at least the suffering I went through as a child was appreciated by others. Although they were not cheering 'me', I could see the appreciation they had for those that did serve and that in itself eased my feelings of difficulty with the whole event. My suffering was for them and they appreciated it. I was not ready for that..

The 'River Fire' thing is an event that includes music, fireworks and a fly-over dump and burn by the RAAF F111's. It is an even that is held for the sake of holding it.. it's planning and all the parties involved do a spectacular job for the enjoyment of the community and it's great to see the turn-out, so many people squashed like sardines and feelings of goodwill (a coming together) all round. Probably the only time so many people lose all personal space but by the time the show starts, no one minds and they go out of their way to help and encourage others to see through the crowds. It truely is an amazing experience!

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MSD

We have a garlic festival, which consists of people loading food with garlic (including some that should never be mixed with it, like ice cream) and serving it to others.

We also have a dogwood festival, which consists of driving around and gawking at rich peoples' trees for 6 hours.

I haven't done either.

guthmund

My community doesn't have a whole lot of big annual festival type things.

There's a big marathon run, which I've never been to. It's for African relief, I think...the details are somewhat hazy... We had a fellow from Kenya run in it this year, which is big shit around here.

Every year around Christmas, the college throws a Jingle on the Green, which is kind of big get together for the holidays. Choral singing, games, public poetry readings, the drama kids put on a play and Santa and such for the kids. I've been a couple of times

I don't know if this counts or not, but the college and local business hold an annual Relay for Life. It's to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The Chancellor's wife died of cancer a couple of years ago, so the college is heavily involved in that. I did a lot of work for that this last month...making signs and such.

A few towns over they hold an annual Turkey Trot. I couldn't tell you what it's for, but it involves a pageant and a parade, which I marched in a couple of times in high school as a member of the band.

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Lockjaw

Hmmm... Juneteenth is about the only regionalized thing that I do that I can think of that would fit.

rockzilla

We have dozens of annual festivals, events and the like. Ottawa is a big tourist city, we almost always have something going on to lure people in from out of town.

In February we open up the Rideau Canal for Winterlude, there's skating, ice sculpures, bathtub races and all other sorts of frozen fun.

In the spring we have the Tulip Festival. The Dutch have given us hundreds of thousands of tulips every year since WW2, when the Dutch Royal Family fled here and we temporarily made a hospital room Dutch territory so that Princess Margriet could be born on Dutch soil. There's concerts, art displays, and tulips everywhere. It's even a federal offense to pick the tulips.

The summer is when things really pick up. We have the Busker festival, Bluesfest, Jazzfest, the rib cookoff and not to mention the granddaddy of them all. Canada Day, the downtown core fills with about 250,000 lunatics with maple leaves painted on their faces, there's a lot of drinking, then we have fireworks.

cellophanedeity

Brampton has a couple of little annual celebrations.

Of course Canada day in Chingcousy park (I've never ever known how to spell it correctly, but that's what it sounds like)

and the "Wing-ding-in-Ching" that I've never been to, so have no idea what it is, but it's one of our things.

We also have Shakespeare in the Square in the summer, when for weeks on end every Tuesday and Thursday you can go to city hall and watch a free live performance of different Shakespeare plays.

And we also have a farmers market that closes down Main Street from 6:30 to 12:00 every Saturday in the summer. Lots of fun and organics and music and so forth.

heh. If you never left Chingcousy park or Main street, you may actually think Brampton's a really nice place to be!

snowy

Corvallis has two big things I can think of: DaVinci Days and the Fall Festival.

I hate DaVinci Days for the singular reason that during an otherwise quiet summer the town suddenly becomes a beehive of activity, several streets near campus are completely closed off, and it suddenly becomes impossible to get around or find a parking spot worth talking about. They also charge far too much money to walk around and gawk at things I'm supposed to find impressive. No thank you.

The Fall Festival, on the other hand, is wonderful. They only shut down one section of street downtown, and it's easily avoidable. Parking is easy (there is a parking garage 1 block north of the festival site) and best of all, it's free. There are tons of concerts, a street dance, and all kinds of vendors and booths. It also happens around the time students start coming back to Corvallis, so the traffic and whatnot generated by the festival doesn't seem like much.

I avoid DaVinci Days and always attend the Fall Festival. It's too much fun to miss.

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cj2112

Grants Pass has a Memorial Day celebration every Memorial Day weekend. It's called Boatnik. They do a parade marathon jetboat racing, sprint boat racing, whitewater hydroplane racing, a carnival, golf shootout, lots of various vendors, a parade, fireworks and an F15 flyover. It's always a good time, and it's hosted by the Grants Pass Active Club which is a service club that benefits various youth orginaztions in the local community. We (the kids and I) go every year.
We also have a Christmas parade that the kids are usually in.
Brookings OR which is on the coast does a big fireworks show every year on the 4th of July and we usually go to that also.

Jinn

I think my "local" tradition is The Renaissance Festival. Since I live so far into the boonies, the nearest town is Larkspur. They host a huge festival there every summer, with costumes and the castle on the front of the mountain and everything. It's a blast!

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