There was a bit of a conversation in the Random Questions thread that inspired this.

Aside from sometimes putting out a Christmas tree in winter back in Hazelton (which nearly killed one of my Sims when it randomly burst into flames) I usually didn't bother with holidays.

Recently, I discovered this calendar on MTS, and the Seasons version has holidays with specific dates. I'm considering implementing it, and aside from certain career tracks (law enforcement is the only I can think of off-hand) letting Sims stay home for some of those days, either by giving them a spare vacation day or just sticking Inge's sign somewhere.

Have you implemented holidays? if so, how?

I do have a few holidays in my game, usually. I also use Phaenoh's calendar, but I don't pay attention to all of the holidays.

Lover's Day (the second day of spring) isn't a public holiday, so sims don't get the day off work, but it is a popular day for sims to date, propose or get married, or just spend some time with their partner(s).

Nation's Day (the third day of summer) is a public holiday - children/teens have the whole summer off school anyway in my game, and many sims take the day off work as well. On Nation's Day sims often throw parties for the family and/or friends; they may have a BBQ, light a bonfire or set off fireworks.

Spooky Day (the fourth day of autumn) isn't a public holiday. It's mainly celebrated by families with children or teens, or by students. People throw parties, wear fancy dress and eat lots of sweet food like desserts and buyable chocolates/candy.

Winter's Eve (the third day of winter) isn't a public holiday, but Winter's Day (the fourth day of winter) is. Pretty much everyone has the day off school/work for Winter's Day. On Winter's Eve families with children may do the Santa thing, pretty much every household has a tree or some kind of decorations up and on Winter's Day it's all about spending time with family. Most families serve turkey for dinner, or something else that's quite fancy, if there is someone with sufficient Cooking points living there. Sims may invite their extended family over for Winter's Day dinner (sometimes as a party, if a sim has a Throw A Party want, or sometimes as a non-timed/scored gathering). Sims of all religions may celebrate Winter's Day, as in my game it's basically a commercial affair nowadays rather than anything with religious significance, but some Ladians (the invented Christian-esque religion that I have in my game) may make an offering of flowers or fruit to the statue of Our Lady Of Light at their local Ladianchurch/chapel.

New Score's* Eve (the fifth day of winter) and New Score's Day (the first day of spring) aren't public holidays, but sims often throw a fairly informal party for family and friends to celebrate New Score's Eve (but generally not an actual New Year's party, because I've had some issues with my game repeatedly crashing during those parties). Gaians (the nature-based religion in my game) may choose to take New Score's Day off work/school to spend time in a (fairly) natural, outdoor environment, such as a beach, wood, park or gardens, to be part of nature, thank Gaia for the past score and seek her blessing for the score to come.

* A "score" in my game is basically a year - it's all four seasons, Spring to Winter, which lasts for twenty days, hence "score". Days themselves are called "yeardays", so twenty yeardays make up a score.

Sort of. I don't have a formal calendar system that lets me know exactly when to hold holidays. Their holidays are loosely linked to real life holidays and sometimes I'll manipulate their seasons to mirror our own so that I can decorate the Sims' homes for Christmas at real Christmas time etc. The holidays:

Christmas - which is like real, secular Christmas - gifts, dinner.
Thanksgiving - same as Christmas without gifts
Simorial Day in the spring. A day to visit the graveyard, or if you're less observant, just a BBQ and fireworks.

Winterfest - do wintery activities at the park, with the rest of the town, then have something hot to drink. I try to get as many Sims as possible into snowball fights to simulate a massive war.
Springfest - again, everyone in town meets at the park, this time for a water balloon fight. There's face painting for the kids (just a CAS makeup edit). Then at night, the kids leave, and it's time for the keg and a bonfire and lots of rounds of the sea shanty.
Summerfest is basically Springfest.

Every playable gets to come to the fests, so hopefully no one needs my Sims to enforce the law or treat their illness... Not everyone celebrates the first three holidays.

No. My little pixels have so much fun that they go to work for some relaxation!

I've never implemented any holiday for Sims. Never felt it's essential, and I don't think I'd ever do that when I have a chance to play it again.

I don't implement holidays out of 4 reasons.

1) I almost always play season-lenght neighbourhood rotations and it would get tedious to celebrate a holiday over and over and over and over again, in every family, every rotation.
2) Sims' lives are to short to make the distribution of holdays "fair"
3) I enjoy everyday play much more
4) There's always weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and teen parties where the sims get to celebrate. How many celebrations do they need?

I do Christmas and New Years now and then, depends if I feel like going to the trouble or not. Sometimes when the calendar says it a certain day like joke day or lovers day I will do a little something -play a prank, give a gift.

@ihatemandatoryregister The calendar contest is an annual event here, check it out: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=5108877 I usually put in one or two entries. Mine is the Autumn fishing picture.

I only have spooky day at the end of autumn and New Year's eve/Christmas mashed together at the end of winter... I'm considering having thanksgiving at the start of the autumn.

OMG. I totally forgot about the calendar contest!

Huh. Maybe I'll take a look through my screenshots...

When I feel like it

This year no sims or sim animals are allowed in the shots, which has made it a bit harder. Statues are allowed though.

I do the major ones: Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Christmas. When I boot up my game today I'll probably give my Simmies a late Thanksgiving celebration and put up a Christmas tree

Yep, in there I mentioned I never implement holidays. And I don't have the holiday party pack sp either, due to total lack of interest in it.
I can understand others implementing holidays. If you like those in real life, then I assume it feels appropriate or logical to use it in your game as well.
For me. I don't have the same feelings about holidays.

Oh actually like some holidays in real life. I just find playing them with my Sims enjoyable ;-)

Glad I inspired a thread

And to answer my own question, yes I do. I use that calendar. It helps me keep track and have nice family moments with my Sims. Without the calendar, it was hard for me to set up Holidays...so I never played them. Now I have reason to. Recently I just had Llama Fools Day. Had my married couple pull pranks on each other. It was cute.

Occasionally for storytelling or photoshoots, but most of the time not. They celebrate the commercial/secular versions of X-mas, maybe Halloween, and perhaps a couple more, depending on what fits into the story. No 4th of July or Thanksgiving imitations, because those are a bit too regional, and we don't celebrate them where I live, so I don't bother with them.

I sometimes have sims celebrate holidays. I don't really have a fixed pattern for who celebrates and who doesn't, though. One extended family in my town all celebrates summer solstice with a family get-together, but only one household actually does anything special during their rotation - they might decorate and they will throw a family reunion with a bonfire. Which household of the five included in the family actually hosts might change. That's the closest to planned celebrations my game has; I'm not even good about celebrating birthdays. Other holidays and festivals are celebrated either on my whims or as ROS events. In my last 'hood, sims celebrated winter day only if they happened to have bought a Christmas tree from the gardening center while I was playing the gardener's family.

One thing I do like doing is creating community lots for particular holidays or seasonal festivals. My current town only has one lot set up for a harvest/thanksgiving festival, but I intend to eventually have four or five community lots for different holidays. Part of why I don't have my sims celebrate holidays more often is that I find the decorating gets tedious, and having group outings at dedicated lots is just easier.

my sims have not yet celebrate any holiday.
maybe they would after I get any of the holiday packs.

I treat each sim-day as a year, so whatever happens on that day represents the most significant events of that year (which sometimes makes me pity my poor sims - "Ah yes, 2016, what a grand year that was. Unclogged three toilets!"). So annual holidays simply don't get a look in. I might, however, celebrate milestones in a longer term perspective, like the neighbourhood's centenary. In fact I've done this twice, and on both occasions I togged everyone up in silly outfits and sent each household out to a community lot through the course of that particular rotation. Doesn't half slow down game play, though. If I get to the tercentennial things might be a bit more low key.

I have a calendar of holidays for my Sims. These are mapped onto a fictional year, that does not tally onto either in-game seasons or real-life time but runs at a speed loosely based on how much I've played the game. As such, I'm nearly at the end of the eighth year of SimHampton despite having played The Sims for nearly 16 years.

The only holidays that are shared between real life and SimHampton is Christmas and New Year (sorry, Turner's Day). Other holidays include, but are not limited to, two days off a year for the Amarilla Arts Awards (to celebrate local creative endeavours), a day to celebrate the High Ruler's birthday and a day to celebrate the successful completion of local elections. Also, holidays can occasionally lose significance and stop being celebrated, if the event celebrated wasn't especially important in the first place, and holidays celebrating leaders' birthdays move to match the actual birthdays of new leaders. On all holidays, the only workers allowed to work away from home are those in the Education career (children and teens may go to school if they want to but are by no means required or expected to do so). Other details of the holidays' celebration depend on the precise occasion.

A Christmas or New Year's Eve Party can be a wonderful thing. I just don't tend to celebrate them with all my households, because it may forever be Christmas then

I use that calendar linked by OP. I celebrate sometimes when I remember because I have show headlines off a lot of times.

For lovers day, parents will spring for a date out of the house and away from the kids.

For Winter Holiday I put up a tree or menorah and some other wintry deco, invite some of the extended family over, bake Santa cookies or a holiday roast and have someone exchange a gift. Or they go group ice skating.

Those are the two most celebrated holidays anyhow.

Llama's Day usually gets jilted pretty often.

Founder's day I will celebrate sometimes and it usually consists of the elder grandparent inviting all their spawn over and demanding help with yard work; They play the 'I'm your ancestor, now honor me by trimming my hedges!' card. I should probably make them go to the cemetery more though to remember their dead ancestors.

Oh I take back my earlier comment, Spooky Day is equally as jilted but someday I will have a sim celebrate it.

I've had a few new years parties but the last one I held I guess I didn't start at the right time and the whole game froze, father time must have been mad I started the party late and now I don't throw them anymore because I have a grudge against it.

I've thrown a few Nation's Day shenanigan's. Having a cook out at home or the state park, a pool party with a fire cracker or sparkler finale out in the front yard is always a good time.

I like the holidays that I can get a lot of friends and family sims together and I think they add a fun kind of fresh mini-game to the existing game to break up some of the day-to-day lives of the sims.

Huh just looked at the calender for the first time. Well it's a neat idea and it's really well done, but it really wouldn't work for me. I usually play my neighbourhoods without winter (I don't live in a place that really gets winter, I grew up in one and very much hated it, so I don't really need it in my game) and I guess that would mess the calendar up.

Though just for fun, would be interesting, if its possible, to align the seasons in my neighbourhood so that "Winter's Eve" falls into the middle of Summer, just like Christmas for me hahaha.

It is possible - the holidays fall on certain days during each 5-day season, regardless of which season that's actually set as. If you set your seasons as Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer, then Winter's Eve/Day would fall during the summer :-)

The pictures in the calendar wouldn't match the seasons/weather in your game, because they're set according to the usual Northern Hemisphere seasons order, but the calendar would still technically work.

And Phaenoh also wrote instructions somewhere on how to edit the calendar for your own use, so you can change the days that are celebrated or add new ones.

Sometimes I do, but to keep it from being too tedious, I'll only celebrate once per round, not once per family. That way, I can decide who can celebrate that particular holiday the best. (Nope, my farming family is not going to celebrate any spring holidays, thank you very much! )