Back when I was playing RPGs mostly with fellow students at uni there was a certain seasonality to my gaming habits. We played a lot during term, when we hadn’t anything much to do, and pretty much packed it in during swot vac and the exams. And then I went away in the summers to earn money to live on the following year. March and July were the seasons for new campaigns to begin, October-November was the time of their sudden and sometimes lamented cessations. Besides that there was sometimes Cancon on the Australia Day long weekend and Phenomenon on the Queen’s Birthday. Apart from that I have never had any annual traditions, nor ever done any gaming that was themed to anniversaries and holidays such as horror gaming at Hallowe’en or Star Wars gaming on May the Fourth.
The only such RPG I’ve ever been in was a “zombies on a cruise ship” scenario run by two friends one New Year’s Eve, as comedic horror with pre-gen characters. I think there were a dozen or so of us playing. It was fun, and C and I were hoping they’d do a sequel event some year.
When a group I was in played a lot of champions we did a few birthday specials. In particular on the speedster player’s birthday we filled the entire ground floor living are of an apartment with hex paper for a scenario that actually let him use his full move in straight lines.
I regularly run a longer game for my Wednesday night group at a meeting during the Christmas holidays. I don’t normally have a Christmas theme to it, leaving that sort of thing to DR WHO.
I wasn’t always that restrained and when younger I had a man in a red suit with white fur trimmings pulled by flying deer appear in my RuneQuest game the meeting before Christmas.
I have run games with a theme of American Independence when Stabcon meets the weekend of July 4th and had a rather good (though I say so myself) winter themed game of DREAD with an MR James theme at a Winter Stabcon once.
Since no longer being associated with university, campaigns no longer start and end with the academic year.
Regular campaigns tend to have a hiatus for holidays like Christmas, New Year and bank holidays, because large herds of the players are too busy with family stuff. Also public transport becomes rubbish, which limits options for getting to/from game venues.
I have run Halloween and Solstice adventures.
My Krampus themed adventure in 13A was great fun.
These specials are meant to be comedic, but the players often seem to take it straight.