Effective date: June 1, 2026.

The short version.

USHolidays.org is a personal project meant to help families and friends celebrate American holidays together. Use it for personal, family, classroom, and community purposes. Be thoughtful in what you submit and post. We can decide what gets published. You keep the rights to what you share, but you let us publish it on the Site. The materials here are for reflection — they aren’t legal, religious, historical, or professional advice.

1. About these Terms

These Terms govern your use of USHolidays.org (the “Site”), a personal, noncommercial project of Ian Ayres. By using the Site — reading, signing up for reminders, commenting, or submitting a contribution — you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy.

2. About the Site

USHolidays.org is an educational and civic project. It offers readings, songs, discussion questions, recipes, and suggested ceremonies for U.S. holidays, intended to inspire family and community reflection. It is run by one person in his personal capacity. Nothing on the Site is legal, religious, historical, medical, or professional advice. Curated and historical materials are presented to spark conversation, not as authoritative statements on contested questions.

3. Using the Site

You may use the Site for personal, family, classroom, and community purposes — read aloud at your gathering, print a song sheet, share a recipe, build a ritual.

You may not:

• Use the Site or its contents for commercial resale or republication
• Scrape, mirror, or republish substantial portions of the Site without permission
• Interfere with the Site’s operation or security
• Use the Site to harass, defame, or harm others
• Submit or comment in ways that violate the rules below

4. Submissions and comments

Community uploads and comments are the heart of the project. The following applies whenever you submit a contribution or post a comment.

Content standards.

You agree that what you submit:

• Is appropriate for all ages and family audiences
• Treats all individuals and communities with dignity and respect
• Does not contain material that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, hateful, threatening, sexually explicit, or otherwise inappropriate
• Does not include political campaigning or commercial advertising
• Does not infringe anyone’s copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights
• Does not include personal information about identifiable people without their permission — and, for minors, without their parent’s permission

You keep your rights, but you grant us a license.

You retain ownership of what you submit. By submitting, you grant Ian Ayres and USHolidays.org a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual license to host, display, reproduce, lightly adapt (for formatting and length), and distribute your submission as part of the Site and its promotion. You can ask us to remove your submission at any time, and we’ll do so within a reasonable period. The license ends when we remove it.

Your promises.

By submitting, you confirm that:

• The content is yours, or you have permission from the rights-holders to share it
• You are at least 13 years old, or a parent or guardian is submitting on a younger child’s behalf
• People identifiable in photos or videos have agreed to be shown (and parents have agreed for minors)
• What you’ve told us is accurate

Our discretion. We review submissions before publication and may decline, edit, or remove anything at our discretion — including approved submissions, later, for any reason. Approval is not an endorsement of the views expressed.

5. Our content

The original writing, design, curation, annotations, and arrangement of materials on the Site belong to Ian Ayres or our contributors and licensors. Many of the historical documents, speeches, and songs we host are in the public domain. Where we host material that remains under copyright, we do so under fair use. You may quote from the Site for personal, educational, journalistic, and noncommercial civic purposes with attribution.

6. Copyright concerns

If you believe content on the Site infringes your copyright, email usholidays.contact@gmail.com with: a description of the work, the URL of the allegedly infringing material, your contact information, a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized, a statement under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate and that you are the rights-holder or authorized to act for them, and your signature (electronic is fine). We will review and respond appropriately, which may include removing the material.

7. Promotions

From time to time, we may run contests, giveaways, or other promotions on the Site. When we do, separate official rules will be posted with the promotion and will govern participation.

8. Links to other sites

The Site may link to external resources — YouTube recordings, the Library of Congress, news sites, and others. We don’t control those sites and aren’t responsible for their content or privacy practices.

9. Disclaimers

The Site is provided “as is” and “as available.” We do our best to keep things accurate and online, but we don’t promise the Site will always be available, error-free, or suited to any particular purpose. Use of the Site is at your own discretion and risk.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Ian Ayres and any contributors to the Site will not be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Site.

11. Indemnification

If your use of the Site, or something you submit, causes a third party to bring a claim against Ian Ayres, you agree to cover reasonable costs and damages.

12. Termination

We can suspend or end your access to the Site (including removing your submissions or comments) at any time, for any reason, including violation of these Terms. You can stop using the Site at any time.

13. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms occasionally. When we do, we’ll change the effective date above, and for significant changes we’ll post a notice on the Site. Continued use after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

14. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Connecticut, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in New Haven County, Connecticut, and you and we both consent to that jurisdiction.

15. Miscellaneous

If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. These Terms are the whole agreement between you and us regarding the Site.

16. Contact

Questions about these Terms: usholidays.contact@gmail.com