Festivals in New York City

Fall Festivals

September Festivals

Brazilian Day New York is the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend. 🇧🇷

Hispanic Heritage Month is September 15 – October 15.
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September 15 marks the independence of Central America:

• Costa Rican Independence Day. 🇨🇷
• El Salvadoran Independence Day. 🇸🇻
• Guatemalan Independence Day. 🇬🇹
• Honduran Independence Day. 🇭🇳
• Nicaraguan Independence Day. 🇳🇮

Mexican Independence Day is September 16. 🇲🇽

The Cuban Yoruba festival of Obatalá is September 24. 🇨🇺

Broadway Musicals Day celebrates the diversity of Broadway musicals on September 29.

National Coffee Day is September 29.

Belie Belcan, the patron saint of justice, is celebrated in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico on September 29 (MichaelMas) because he is syncretized with Archangel Michael. 🇩🇴 🇵🇷

The Feast of Archangel Michael (Michaelmas) is September 29. 🇮🇹

October Festivals

International Coffee Day celebrates the beloved Ethiopian drink on October 1. 🇪🇹

Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year 5785, is from sundown on Wednesday, October 2, 2024 to sundown on Friday, October 4, 2024. “Shanah Tova.” ✡️

The Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, and environment, and one of the patrons of Italy, is October 4. The blessing of the animals is on or around his feast day. ✝️

Second Monday in October is:

• Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday in October, celebrates the real discoverers of the Americas between 12,000 and 25,000 years ago.
• Italian Heritage Day (formerly Columbus Day) celebrates one of the communities who defined New York City. 🇮🇹
• Columbus Day in the U.S. stopped American Southerners from lynching Italian Americans for association with African Americans, but the evil man unleashed The Apocalypse on the world. DNA studies indicate he was Spanish, not Italian, and his own writings suggest he was not Christian either. 🇪🇸

Spain’s National Day (la Fiesta Nacional de España) is October 12. 🇪🇸

Feast of Our Lady of Fatima is October 13. 🇵🇹

Hispanic Heritage Month ends on October 15.
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National Pasta Day is October 17. 🇮🇹

International Creole Day is October 28.

The Feast of St Jude Thaddeus, patron saint of hopeless causes, is October 28.

Diwali, the South Asian festival of lights, is October 31, 2024. 🪔

Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), the Mexican family celebration of life is October 31 – November 2. 🇲🇽

November Festivals

November is:

• Puerto Rican Heritage Month. 🇵🇷
• American Indian Heritage Month. 🇺🇸

Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), the Mexican family celebration of life, is Thursday, November 2, 2023. 🇲🇽

Veterans Day is Saturday, November 11, 2023. The bank holiday is Friday, November 10, 2023. 🇺🇸

Diwali, the West Indian and South Asian festival of lights, and Hindu New Year, Sunday-Thursday, November 12-16, 2023. The peak is November 15. (Indians are Latin through the Caribbean.) 🇮🇳🇹🇹

Moroccan Independence Day is November 18. 🇲🇦

Thanksgiving Day, the U.S. harvest festival and celebration of family, is Thursday, November 23, 2023. 🇺🇸

Native American Heritage Day is Friday, November 24, 2023. 🇺🇸

Winter Festivals

December Festivals

Día de las Velitas, the Colombian festival of lights in anticipation of the church’s acceptance of the Immaculate Conception, is December 7. 🇨🇴

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception marking the church’s acceptance of the divinity and equality of women, is December 8. 🇮🇹

International Tango Day is Carlos Gardel’s birthday on December 11, 1890. 🇦🇷 🇫🇷 🇺🇾

Las Mañanitas a nuestra Virgen de Guadalupe, Guadalupe’s traditional birthday eve celebration, is December 11. 🇲🇽

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico and icon of our mixed Latin identity, is December 12. 🇲🇽

The Feast of Babalú-Ayé, Cuban Yoruba orisha of sickness and healing, is December 17. 🇨🇺

National Sangria Day celebrates the Iberian summer punch on December 20. 🇵🇹 🇪🇸

Northern Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, and ancient root of the northern winter holidays, ranges between December 21-23.

The Feast of Huitzilopochtli honors the supreme Mixtéc god on the Winter Solstice. 🇲🇽

Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, is Wednesday, December 25, 2024 to Thursday, January 2, 2025. 🕎

Christmas Eve, Noche Buena, is December 24. 🇮🇹

Christmas, the Christian celebration of the traditional birth of Christ, is December 25. 🇮🇹

Kwanzaa, the African American holiday tradition, is December 26 – January 1. 🇺🇸

New Year’s Eve is December 31. 🇮🇹

Watch Night, the African American tradition of spending New Year’s Eve in church, waiting for the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, is the night of December 31.

January Festivals

New Year’s Day is January 1. 🇮🇹

Kwanzaa, the African American holiday celebration ends with a focus on “Imani” (faith) on January 1. 🇺🇸

Haitian Independence Day, one of the world’s greatest humanitarian achievements, is January 1, 1804. 🇭🇹

Emancipation Proclamation said “all persons…shall henceforward shall be free” of January 1, 1863. 🇺🇸

Letra del año (Letter of the Year) is a Cuban Yoruba forecast of the year. 🇨🇺

Sudanese Independence Day is January 1, 1956. 🇸🇩

Solemnity of Mary honors mothers and children on January 1. 🇮🇹

Three Kings Day, the Hispanic gift-giving day and end of Christmas Season, is January 6! 🇵🇷🇪🇸

Three Kings Day Parade is on or around January 6.

Elegúa, the Yoruba orisha of the crossroads, has his Cuban feast day on January 6. ¡Aché! 🇨🇺

Carnival gets going on Kings Day, Twelfth Night, January 6.

Las Octavitas, the octave (8-day celebration) of Three Kings Day, is celebrated in Puerto Rico, January 7-14. 🇵🇷

Martin Luther King’s birthday is January 15. 🇺🇸

Martin Luther King Day, the U.S. holiday, is the third Monday in January. 🇺🇸

La Virgen de la Altagracia, patron saint of the Dominican Republic, is celebrated on January 21. 🇩🇴

Dominican Heritage Month is January 21 – February 27. 🇩🇴

India Republic Day is January 26, 1950. (Indians are Latin in the Caribbean.) 🇮🇳

Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27, 1945. ✡️

February Festivals

February is Black History Month. 🇺🇸

Our Lady of Candelaria, patron saint of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain and the African Diaspora is celebrated on February 2. 🇪🇸

Maman Brigitte, the Haitian Loa of death and life, is celebrated on February 2. 🇭🇹

Grenada Independence Day is February 7, 1974. 🇬🇩

Our Lady of Lourdes, the healing Marian apparition, is celebrated on February 11. 🇫🇷

Galentines Day is February 13. You have everything you need, right inside your chest.

Valentines Day, and the Roman saints conflated with romantic love, is February 14. 🇮🇹

Celebrate Las Comadres (Thursday before Carnival Tuesday), a women’s Carnival gathering in Asturia, Spain; Cochabamba & Tarija, Bolivia; and Arequipa, Peru. 🇪🇸🇧🇴🇵🇪

Celebrate Presidents Day (George Washington & Abraham Lincoln) on Monday, February 20, 2023. 🇺🇸

Carnival Tuesday (Fat Tuesday) is March 4, 2025.

Saint Lucian Independence Day on February 22. 🇱🇨

National Margarita Day is February 22. 🇲🇽

Dominican Independence Day is February 27, 1844. ¡Quisqueya! 🇩🇴

Spring Festivals

March Festivals

March is Women’s History Month. 🇺🇸

Saint Patrick’s Day is March 17. 🇮🇪

Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere is between March 19-21.

April Festivals

International Romani Day is April 8.

NYC Immigrant Heritage Week is the week with April 17, the day when the most immigrants passed through Ellis Island.

Earth Day celebrates the founding of the Environmental Movement in 1970.

May Festivals

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. 🇺🇸

International Workers Day is May 1.

Cinco de Mayo is May 5. 🇲🇽

Mother’s Day in the USA is the 2nd Sunday in May.

George Floyd Day is May 25. His lynching by police in 2020, changed the world. The shock of it launched the Harlem Renaissance 3.0. 🇺🇸

152nd Street Cultural Festival is a Memorial Day Weekend street fair in Longwood, The Bronx that kicks off the National Puerto Rican Day Parade celebration. 🇵🇷

Loisaida Festival is a Memorial Day Weekend street fair and parade in “Loisaida,” Alphabet City in Manhattan’s East Village. 🇵🇷

Memorial Day Weekend includes the last Monday in May. 🇺🇸

Summer Festivals

June Festivals

June is Pride Month. 🏳️‍🌈

National Puerto Rican Day Parade is the second Sunday in June. 🇵🇷

Father’s Day in the USA is the third Sunday in June. 🇺🇸

Juneteenth celebrates the legal end of human slavery in the USA on June 19, 1865. 🇺🇸

Mother Earth has the Northern Summer Solstice (and Southern Winter Solstice), the longest day (longest night) of the year, on June 20 or 21.

French celebrate la Fête de la Musique with street music all night long on the northern summer solstice. 🇫🇷

The Latin world celebrates Saint John’s Eve by jumping over bonfires at midnight on June 23.

The Catholic Feast of St John the Baptist, a forerunner of Christ, is June 24. 🇮🇹

Andean communities in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, celebrate Inti Raymi, Inca New Year, on June 24. 🇵🇪 🇧🇴 🇪🇨 🇦🇷

Haitians celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, patron saint of Haiti, on June 27. 🇭🇹

National Ceviche Day is June 28. 🇺🇸

The LGBTQ+ community commemorates the Stonewall Riots that energized the Pride Movement on June 28.

Cubans and Puerto Ricans celebrate Ogun, the Yoruba orisha of iron, on June 29. 🇨🇺 🇵🇷

July Festivals

US Independence Day is July 4. 🇺🇸

August Festivals

Black August is a month-long celebration of freedom fighters and political prisoners. 🇺🇸

Harlem Week is a celebration of African Diasporic culture in Harlem, Central Park, and Morningside Heights, in the first two weeks of August. 🇺🇸

Ecuadorian Independence Day is August 10. 🇪🇨

Indian Independence Day is August 15, 1947. NYC’s India Day Parade celebrates on weekend around Independence Day. 🇮🇳

National Dominican Day Parade celebrates Dominican Restoration on the second Sunday in August. 🇩🇴

Dominican Restoration Day is August 16, 1863. 🇩🇴

The Queenship of Mary, on August 22, recognizes the Virgin Mary as the Queen of Heaven, and thereby acknowledges the divinity of women. 🇮🇹

Uruguayan Independence Day is Friday, August 25, 2023. 🇺🇾