Q. We have in our neighborhood a Groundhog Day celebration done for kids, that looks like lots of fun. Can our children attend?
A. Groundhog Day, in the United States and Canada, day (February 2) on which the emergence of the groundhog (woodchuck) from its burrow is said to foretell the weather for the following six weeks.
t derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den, and winter will go on for six more weeks; if it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early.
The main Groundhog Day ceremony is held at Punxsutawney in western Pennsylvania, centering on a semi-mythical groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil, has become the most frequently attended ceremony where crowds as large as 40,000 gather each year.
Candlemas (celebrated also in that day) is the day of the presentation of Oiso Hoish at the Temple is a primarily Catholic festival but also known in the German Protestant (Lutheran) churches. (From Wikipedia).
Due to the above sources Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a opinion is that one should not attend.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Dovid Pam, Horav Aharon Miller and Horav Chanoch Ehrentreu Shlit’a