Holidays, whether religious, secular, or national, are proper nouns and therefore should be capitalized. This includes all national holidays when businesses are closed, such as Columbus Day, and most religious and holy days, such as Hanukkah.
The holiday capitalization rules include whether you use the short or long form of the title. For example, both New Year’s Day and New Year’s are capitalized. This also includes related “eves” such as New Year’s Eve or Halloween Eve.
If you are using the holiday in a title or headline, any proceeding adjectives that are referencing the holiday, such as “Merry Christmas,” are also capitalized.
Here’s a list of some of the most common holidays that are capitalized:
Advent
All Saints’ Day
Australia Day
Bastille Day
Boxing Day
Canada Day
Christmas (also Christmas Day and Christmas Eve)
Coming of Age Day (Japan)
Eid Mubarak
Epiphany
Good Friday
Hanukkah
Holocaust Remembrance Day
Holy Thursday, Holy Saturday, Holy Week
Independence Day (US) also the Fourth of July and July Fourth
Juneteenth
Kwanzaa
Labour Day (Canada and other nations)
Lent
Martin Luther King Jr. Day (US)
Maundy Thursday
May Day
Michaelmas (the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel)
Mother’s Day
New Year’s (also New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve)
Passover
Purim
Ramadan
Remembrance Day
Rosh Hashanah
St George’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day (also Saint or St Patrick’s Day)
Thanksgiving (also Thanksgiving Day)
the High Holy Days
Twelfth Night
Veterans Day (no apostrophe)
Victoria Day (Canada)
Victory Day (Russia)
Yom Kippur
Do these holiday capitalization rules always hold?
No. As with any rules, there are exceptions. When written in standard text, the following should not be capitalized.
- happy birthday
- happy Thanksgiving
- happy holidays
- happy anniversary
- season’s greetings
- happy or merry Christmas
- happy New Year
