It's December first, and so it's now time for people to put up their Christmas decorations and radio stations to play their Christmas songs--if they haven't already. It seems people start getting the Christmas stuff out earlier and earlier, with Halloween (sometimes) serving as the ultimate bastion. It seems some holidays just have more clout than others. Why is that? Which Holidays are considered big stars, and which seem to come and go?
Christmas
Obviously the biggest holiday. Pretty much the standard for holidays, Christmas is a maybe a fifth season. It's a little like the New York Yankees or McDonald's where it's the undisputed juggernaut, and at times rather resented for it. It's not hard to see how it became the king of the holiday kingdom. First, when someone got the bright idea to make it officially about gift-giving, people started looking forward to it. When it became about kids receiving bounty, people started to look forward to it in its formative years, and advertisers saw no reason why they couldn't whet children's appetites for more stuff. Then there's the part where, as the days grow shorter and colder, we sort of need something cheerful to remind of us of it. It's no mistake that December celebrations are pretty common throughout most pre-Christian western cultures. Another thing that prolongs the whole Christmas celebration is that even within Christian denominations, people can't decide which part of the season they want to emphasize--the feast of St. Nicholas? The Epiphany? So when people say the catch-all "Happy Holidays", they're not trying to strangle the baby Jesus in his cradle, there's simply a lot of days to include, even for gentiles.
Christmas itself is mega-iconic, even ubiquitous, in American popular culture. Santa Claus is maybe the most important figure of modern folklore. Halloween and Valentine's Day have copacetic genres, but Christmas is a genre. Christmas Specials have taken on a life of it's own, as Rudolph and teh Grinch are pop culture icons, and Charlie Brown has a life of his own outside the season, but his Christmas specials is one of the most remembered pieces of the 20th century. Christmas movies can be extremely popular--two of the top ten AFI movies are holiday classics, and stars like Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell have seen Christmastime movies as the biggest of their careers. Likewise, the ancillary markets can be rich as well, as TV stations and stores will constantly have it stuck in rotation, giving new life to often-forgotten works like Year Without a Santa Claus. Even the resentment for Christmas due to perceived issues like commercialism, sentiment, hypocrisy, (as in "Why can't good will be a year-round thing?") or where you stand on the religious-vs-secular divide--that itself has a market. Anti-Christmas works like Bad Santa and various horror (usually about a killer in a Santa Suit) have been lucrative. It's also sometimes in the background for movies like Die Hard and the works of Tim Burton and Shane Black--not as an indictment, but to contrast the Yuletide with some dark and lurid story elements--like a tonal sweet and sour chicken.
New Years
Kind of part of the Christmas sphere of influence (Most people have their decorations up at this point), it does have a little bit of its own identity, as something a little sexier and more adult than Christmas. (Actually, in may ways, embodying the decadent parts of Christmas that ended up getting it banned by Puritans) It has its own patron, (Baby New Year) and traditions, (resolutions, making out) it ultimately serves as the official end to the Holiday season as well as the year itself. kids go back to school, and movie studios cut back on their event movies. It has been the subject of a horror film here and there, especially around 2000, when people were existentially afraid of the coming Y2K-pocalypse.
Valentine's Day
The beginning of the second wave of "second stringer" spring Holidays. Valentine's Day doesn't get the day off, and people generally don't have Valentine's Day parties or Valentine's Day family gathering. Still, it's up there as culturally significant. Probably because it's pretty easy to put together. A heart here, and borrowing Cupid for its patron, and it's all set. It helps that romance is a pretty universal concept, and it's not a hard idea to get across. Almost every TV series (particularly sitcoms) has at least one episode dedicated to it, and while not that many movies take place on the holiday itself, it's a very popular time for releasing romantic "date movies", especially because a lot of romantic comedies and the like can be cheap to make. (Which is important during the winter months, which are some of the slowest of the year) It even has an "official" movie, Valentine's Day, which kind of became shorthand for the "ensemble romantic comedy with a holiday theme", as it's by far the most successful. (But came well after Love Actually) Also, there's an interesting trend where trading card companies put pout packs of rather cheap cards with cartoon characters to exchange at school. Valentine's Day is probably up there in terms of backlash as well, as the commodification of romance gets it the biggest criticisms of being a "Hallmark Holiday". Likewise, being single is enough of a slog without being made to feel like you're not contributing to the economy because of it. It has a few interesting achievements in the holiday slasher subgenre--the original My Bloody Valentine is considered a lost classic, and 2001's Valentine has the dubious distinction of ending the Scream era.
St Patrick's Day
Right now the biggest holiday tied to an ethnicity, (though Cinco De Mayo is getting up there), St Patrick's Day is tied in with America's fascination with Irish culture (and drinking), as "Irish" is the second most common ethnicity in the U.S.'s collective ancestry. As a result, there are parades in areas with a high Irish American population. In many ways, it's a true-second (or third) tier holiday, as its mascot is usually a no-name leprechaun, and should Easter fall in March, it's not even the most important holiday of the year. Many people from Ireland also tend to find it an aggravating exploitation of stereotypes. Leprechauns themselves are a popular subject for movies and TV (the Leprechaun series of horror movies for instance), but very few take place on St Patrick's Day in particular.
