during St. Paddy's to understand why there's no comparison to any of the other holidays.

like here in Chicago - there will be 2 parades this weekend and each will draw over a million spectators. the river will be dyed bright green as part of one of the parades. the partying will start tonight and continue through next Thursday. it'll all peak this weekend but next Thursday will be pretty large too. but as for this weekend - the drinking and reveling will start tonight and pick up bright and early tomorrow. i've regularly seen ppl shit-faced by 7am on parade day - especially when the weather has been warm and there's no rain.

and that's just Chicago. it takes over all of the parts of the city w/large populations of white ppl (Chicago is like 30/30/30 white/black/Latino). the same scene exists in Boston, NYC and Savannah - those are probably larger celebrations than even Chicago's.

Halloween is a big event here too but not on the scale of St. Paddy's day. it's not as OOC.

speaking of OOC - a few years ago the city shut down one of the St. Paddy's Day parades b/c the partying was so wild. that parade happens down on the far South(west) Side in residential neighborhoods. a million ppl would pack in and get WHITE GIRL WASTED ALL DAY - taking over neighborhood dive bars and restaurants, puking on ppl's front lawns, fighting the streets...it was too much. it's back now but the city tries to keep it more tame. we'll see. lol.