What is your most favorite holiday and why? Yessss, your birthday counts if you wish.

When I was little Passover was my favorite. It was the one the extended family always got together for each year. It also was my favorite for the food. My grandma made the best matzoh ball soup, and special Passover candies. She didn’t always make the same entree, but it was always delicious.

New Year’s Eve: I have two weeks off from school every New Year’s Eve. I have time to spend with my family and occassionally friends. I have to help my family with the cleaning work, but somehow I enjoy it more than normal days. After the cleaning is a long time of rest and going out, which is relaxing. New Year’s Eve is also the time for good food and (when I was young) money collection.

Summer holiday: the only time of the year when I don’t have to worry about work. Basically nothing changes, except for the fact that I don’t have to go to school. I can spend time doing anything I want because I have more free time. It usually lasts for 3 months. Nothing is more relaxing than spending 3 months without work.

Meh…I am older now and the holidays and birthdays are just another day to me. I am not attached to any particular way of celebrating anymore.
I enjoy Thanksgiving, I love to cook great food and bake pies and see others enjoying the fare but otherwise I have kept the holidays very simple for a long time now. Just good food, a couple gifts and enjoying the company of my daughter her boyfriend and friends.

Since starting at daycare work all of December has become quite special. They celebrate advent all month here in Scandinavia and it is so dark out and we light candles and sing special songs. When I get home it is shockinglying lonely for me and I cry A LOT but at least I have days with the children.

July 4th. No question about it. My love for the holiday has very little to do with it’s origin. I simply enjoy every aspect of the celebration:
Cooking food on the outdoor grill.
The perfect weather with comfortable days and cool nights.
The sound of kids and adults kids setting off fireworks in the distance all day.
Closed businesses and offices so my phone isn’t ringing.
Bonfire in the fire pit.

The real fireworks are icing on the cakes. The thump of the lift charge, the flash and burst followed by the trailing concussion. If you are in the right spot you can smell and taste the products of combustion. Every sense is stimulated.

I host a party at my place every year and usually have about 70–80 attendees – sometimes it is much more. It is wonderful.
People bring a dish to pass which can be anything. Food drink, toys, fireworks, RC planes, potato cannons, science experiments that might damage grass, etc. Bring it!
The next day friends come over and help clean up – including putting down top soil and new grass seed in places.

When I was a kid, Christmas, because of all the magic and lights and excitement and anticipation. As an adult, I kind of dread it because of all the noise and the excitement and the planning.

As an adult, Thanksgiving is my favorite. I do everything I can to get the whole family together in one place. The kids like to help me make bread. My favorite thing in the whole world is having my family around.

I agree with @Coloma, they all kind of run in together and do not involve much in the way of celebration any more.

I remember Guy Fawkes Day from when I was a kid. I liked that because of the bonfires.and fireworks

In my 20’s I enjoyed Aggie Bonfire (before Turkey Day) and even as an adult enjoyed taking my kids into the huge crowds that gathered to witness the burning and being a part of the undulating masses.

Now, I am just happy to have a day off where nothing is expected of me.

Thanksgiving, when I was young we lived away from most of my parent’s sisters and brothers, my mom’s parents moved to the area, we lived in in Southern California.
We would have Thanksgiving with 27 to 30 people. There were people from my father’s office (including wives & kids) that also had no relatives in the area. Some would brings side dishes an desserts, I remember one year my mom stuffed a 25 pound turkey into our oven and people in the neighborhood, that worked with my dad, brought an oven baked ham.