United States of America (Virginia) : public and bank holidays, closure of banks, stock exchanges, school vacations

Secular holiday : Swapping out of an official holiday celebrating Thomas Jefferson’s birthday for a day recognizing the emancipation of slaves. from 2019

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cards/flowers : Mother’s day has evolved in many countries in different ways. This is because mother’s day has different origins in different countries and therefore occurs on different days in the year. One school of thought claims that this day emerged from the custom of mother worship in ancient Greece. Mother worship which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of gods, and Rhea, the wife of Cronus, was held on March 15 to March 18 around Asia Minor. They insist that this custom spread around the world. Mothering Sunday is the celebration of motherhood in the United Kingdom. It is also known as Mid-lent Sunday, Rose Sunday and Laetare Sunday. It originally comes from the Victorian practice of allowing servants to return home to visit their mothers on this day. In the United States, Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1819 - October 17, 1910) was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet. Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862 and quickly became one of the most popular songs for the Union during the American Civil War. After the war she focused her activities on the causes of Pacifism and women’s suffrage. In 1870 she was the first to proclaim Mother’s Day, with her Mother’s Day Proclamation. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson approved Mother’s Day in 1914

Secular holiday : Observed on the last Monday in May in most of the United States, in honour of the nation’s armed services personnel killed in wartime and the deceased in general. Created after the Civil War, it is traditionally marked by parades, memorial speeches

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Banks only : To remember and honor the freeing, in Galveston, Texas, in 1865, of the last slaves in the United States from 2019 on

Secular holiday : West Virginia Day - celebrates the anniversary of the creation of the state as a result of the secession of several northwestern counties of Virginia during the height of the United States Civil War [Wikipedia]

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Secular holiday : Commemorates the formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Fourth is traditionally celebrated publicly with parades and pageants, patriotic speeches, and organized firing of guns and cannons and displays of fireworks.

Secular holiday : Celebrated on the first Monday in September with parades. For most Americans, it marks the end of summer holidays, and for many students the beginning of the classes.

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