"Red, pink and white form a grand color combination for a quilt called CHINESE HOLIDAY. It has all the charm and appearance of a modern quilt. It certainly calls to mind the gay Chinese lanterns bobbing in the breeze. And yet, with a selection of old fashioned print materials, this same block assumes another distinct personality which ranks it with the 150 year old quilts in quaintness and mellow beauty. The patches themselves are as simple as those of the earliest pieced quilts. The ancestry of this quilt is unknown, yet like many an individual, it has achieved success and popularity on its own merits."

The holiday being celebrated around the date of Cabot's column, and which fits with her notes, is apparently the Chinese Lantern Festival, as described at Wikipedia (lantern icon, center, above right from Google clipart):

"The Lantern Festival is a festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunisolar year in the lunar calendar marking the last day of the lunar New Year celebration. It's usually in February or March in the Gregorian calendar. As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become a festival with great significance. During the Lantern Festival, children go out at night to temples carrying paper lanterns and solve riddles on the lanterns."

Photo from Lanterns & Riddles !!