Holidyas and festivals in the USA

There are many holidays and festivals held in the USA. The most important are the federal holidays (it means that there areheld in all American states) are New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labour Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day. At these days all people have days off.

Halloween

  • the name Halloween means All Hallows Eve, or the night before the ′All Hallows
  • It is celebrated all around the western world

History of Halloween

  • On the night of October 31, Celts celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
  • The presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future.
  • During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins
  • By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands
  • Christians designated November 1 All Saints′ Day, a time to honour saints and martyrs
  • the night before it began to be called All-hallows Eve - Halloween.
  • in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls′ Day, a day to honour the dead
  • It was celebrated with big bonfires, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils
  • the three celebrations - the Eve of All Saints, All Saints, and All Souls were called Hallowmas.
  • As European immigrants came to America, they brought the Halloween customs with them
  • Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories
  • Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money
  • Young women believed that, on Halloween, they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings, or mirrors.

Nowadays Halloween celebrations include:

  • trick-or-treating
  • wearing costumes and attending costume parties
  • carving jack-o′-lanterns
  • ghost tours, bonfires
  • apple bobbing
  1. trick-or-treating = Children in costumes pass from door to door asking for goodies and threatening to play tricks on those who refuse. The treats are usually some sweets or money
  2. wearing costumes and attending costume parties = Americans love Halloween parties (examples: Pirates of the Caribbean Halloween Party, Harry Potter Halloween Party, Fear Factor Halloween Theme, Twilight Halloween Theme, Elegant Halloween Dinner Party, Pumpkin Carving Jack-O-Lantern Party, Halloween Haunted House, Wacky Mad Science Party. They decorate their houses in scary mood - using spiders, copwebs, pumpkins etc.Americans prepare special meals for their Halloween parties. Halloweenmeals should look scary yet taste delicious: Caramel or taffy apples, Halloween Finger Cookies, Hissing Madagascar Cockroaches, Deli Meat Head and many others.They prepare also some more traditional meals like: Pumpkin pie, Roasted pumpkin seeds, Roasted sweet corn, Soul cakes.
  3. jack-o′-lanterns = carved pumpkin with a candle inside to light it. A monstrous face is carved onto the outside surface.Curving pumpkins has a long tradition. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed "Stingy Jack".Jack is considered a greedy man and is not allowed into either heaven or hell.He was given a lantern by the God.In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack′s lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips and placing them into windows to frighten away Stingy Jack. In the United States, the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became an emblem of Halloween
  4. Apple bobbing = a funny game played at the Halloween.The game is played by filling a tub or a large basin with water and putting apples in the water.Because apples are less dense than water, they will float at the surface.Players then try to catch one with their teeth.Use of hands is not allowed.Apple bobbing originates from Celtic times when apples were associated with love or fertility                                                                                                                                                                                                       Thanksgiving
  • Thanksgiving is associated with giving thanks to God for the harvest and expressing gratitude.
  • Nowadays U.S. tradition compares the holiday with a meal held in 1621
  • In the United States, certain kinds of food are traditionally served at Thanksgiving meals
  • Baked or roasted turkey is usually the featured item on any Thanksgiving feast table
  • Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet corn, fall vegetables, pumpkin pie are commonly served
  • The Thanksgiving dinner begins by saying Grace (a prayer before meal)

"God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. Amen."

 

Thanksgiving Day -history

 

• The first people to celebrate Thanksgiving were the Pilgrims.

• Pilgrims are people who make a journey for religious reason.

• Small group of these people sailed across the Atlantic ocean in 1620.

• They went to America to find religious freedom.

• Americans call them Pilgrim Fathers.

• In November, 1621, they sat down to eat together and to give thanks to God for enabling them to survive their first year in America.

• They were joined by local Amerindians

• The Wampanoag and Pequamid people lived in nearby forest.

• They shared corn with the Pilgrims.

• They show them also the best places to catch fish.

• Later the Amerindians gave the Pilgrims seed corn

• They showed them how to plant crops

• Without them there would have been no Thanksgiving.

 

Thanksgiving Day -present days

 

• During the Thanksgiving weekend people travel a lot to meet

their families.

• The day before Thanksgiving many people go to pubs and bars to meet their friends.

• The Saturday after Thanksgiving takes place theWorld′s Largest Disco in Buffalo, New York.

• There are thousands of dancers

• In New York City, the Macy′s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held every year

• It goes from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Macy′s flagship store in Herald Square

• The last float that always ends the Macy′s Parade is the Santa Claus float - an unofficial sign of the beginning of the Christmas season.

• There are Thanksgiving parades in many other cities.

• American football is an important part of many Thanksgiving celebrations.

• For many college football teams theseason ends on Thanksgiving weekend

• the final game is against a regional or historic rival

 

Christmas

  • Christmas = international holiday
  • The name Christmas comes from the wordChrist and mass (Kristus a mše). Christians celebrate Christmas Day as the anniversary of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Popular customs include exchanging gifts, decorating Christmas trees, attending church, sharing meals with family and friends and, of course, waiting for Santa Claus to arrive
  • December 24th – Christmas Eve , December 25th – Christmas Day. Christmas Dayhas been a federal holiday in the United States since 1870.

History of Christmas

  • The history of Christmas dates back over 4000 years. Many of our Christmas traditions were celebrated centuries before the Christ child was born. It can be dated back to the early Mesopotamians
  • The exact day of the Christ child′s birth has never been pinpointed. In 350 AD Bishop of Rome, Julius I, choose December 25th as the observance of Christmas.By 1100 Christmas had become the most important religious festival in Europe.
  • The popularity of Christmas grew until the Reformation, a religious movement of the 1500′s.When Oliver Cromwell and  Puritans  took over England in 1645 they cancelled Christmas.
  • Charles II returned the popular holiday. 
  • The Pilgrims were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favour, including Christmas
  • Christmas was declared a federal holiday in June 26, 1870
  • Americans re-invented Christmas and they changed it into a family-centered day of peace and nostalgia. Christmas was a peaceful holiday bringing groups together across lines of wealth or social status. In the years after the Civil War, Christmas traditions spread across the country. Sunday school classes encouraged the celebration of Christmas.
  • By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, America eagerly decorated trees, caroled, baked, and shopped for the Christmas season. Since that time, materialism, media, advertising, and mass marketing has made Christmas what it is today

Christmas nowadays

  1. Time before Christmas in America
  • Before Christmas it is popular to decorate the house from inside and outside. Houses are decorated with Santa Clauses and reindeers, snowmen glisten on the front lawns.
  1. December 24th – Christmas Eve
  • Traditions are a big part of the holidays and Christmas Eve is no exception. In the morning The search for the perfect tree begins. It’s a tradition that the youngest child gets to choose the tree. Than they decorate the Christmas tree, but always as a family. They are singing carols while decorating the Christmas tree. After the tree is decorated everyone counts to three and then dad plugs it in. The Christmas tree is topped by:
  • a star to represent the Star of Bethlehem
  • an angel which announces the birth of Christ
  • Many family trees have ornaments from more than one generation. Lights are a must and the more the better. The tree is often placed so that it can be viewed by passers-by in the street.
  • Families get together for the midday meal or dinner. The family comes to gather around the table, which has been beautifully decorated.
  • What are Americans having for dinner?  Turkey, ham, fish or the traditional goose, antipasto followed by pasta with crab sauce, plum pudding, homemade cookies, Italian pastries
  • After the dinner they spend time together. Christmas stockings for all family members (including pets) are put on the mantel piece. Popular is reading Clement Clark Moore’s T was the Night Before Christmas.
  • Before the children go to bed they put out milk and cookies for Santa. Than parents wrap presents and put them under the tree.  Every family has their own special Christmas traditions – passed down from generation to generation.
  1. December 25th – Christmas Day
  • Early in the morning children rush  to the Christmas tree to unwrap their presents. They open their Christmas stockings as well. It is often a time of an extended open house with friends dropping by to bring gifts or just to wish everyone a happy holiday. Some families attend morning mass, because various churches play an important part in the American Christmas. Many families feel that it is important to go to church on Christmas
  • There are also a variety of associated activities such as :church dinners, live Nativity scenes, choir concerts, special church services

Symbols

  • Red and green colour – Ancient people used holly to decorate their homes for winter. Holly is an evergreen which weathers the cold of winter, ancient peoples believed that the plant would lend its strength to their homes and families.
  • Angels – Angels nowadays differ from the older ones, they are more human-like. It symbolizes the devine guidance and protection that Mary and Joseph had during Christ´s birth
  • Ringing of a bell – The tradition goes back to the Middle ages in which the bells were the only form of sound to gather large crowds together.
  • AChristmas card- is a greeting card sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey between people a range of sentiments related to the Christmas season. The custom of sending Christmas cards started in the U.K. in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole. Nowadays cards have all sorts of pictures on them: jokes, winter pictures, Santa Claus, romantic scenes of life in past times. Charities often sell their own Christmas Cards as a way raising money at Christmas
  • Christmas seals - are labels placed on mail during the Christmas season to raise funds and awareness for charitable programs. Today the Christmas Seals benefit the American Lung Association and other lung related issues
  • Farolitos- Also called luminaria. It is a small light or lantern (commonly a candle set in some sand inside a paper bag) which is of significance among New World Hispanics at Christmas time.
  • Nativity scene – Also called crèche, or crib. Itis a depiction of the birth of Jesus as described in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. St. Francis of Assisi is credited with creating the first nativity scene. A static nativity scene is erected in homes and churches during the Christmas season. Itis composed of figurines depicting the infant Jesus resting in a manger, Mary, and Joseph. Other figuresare angels, shepherds,animals. The figures may be made of any material, and arranged in a stable or cave.The living nativity scene is often a popular local attraction for Christmas celebrants
  • Holly - The evergreen holly symbolizes eternal life. It is a man′s plant and is believed to bring good luck and protection to men .Itishung about the doors and windows to keep away witches, spells, evil spirits, goblins, and lightning.
  • Christmas star - The Christmas star has traditionally been associated with the spirit of the celebration - the significance of the star can be found in the story related to the birth of Jesus Christ. The Christmas star symbolizes high hopes and high ideals.
  • Mistletoe - A symbol of love, peace and goodwill. Mistletoe is an aerial parasite that has no roots of its own and lives off the tree that it attach itself to. The plant had special healing powers for everything (female infertility - poison ingestion.)
  • Poinsettia - The poinsettia flower is small, green, yellow, red. It is named after Joel R. Poinsett, who served as the USA first ambassador to Mexico, from 1825-1829. Itbecameone of the most delightful decorations at Christmas
  • Christmas stocking - Children all over the world continue the tradition of hanging Christmas stockings. Originally, children simply used one of their everyday socks, but eventually special Christmas stockings were created for this purpose.A Christmas stocking is an empty sock or sock-shaped bag that children hang on Christmas Eve so that Santa can fill it with small toys, candy, fruit, coins, or other small gifts when he arrives. These small items are often referred to as stocking stuffers or stocking fillers.Tradition says that a child who behaves badly during the year will receive only a piece of coal. By tradition, the stocking is hung on the fireplace.Since modern homes often do not have a fireplace, it is hung inany locationunder the assumption that Santa can find it wherever it is.Many families create their own Christmas stockings with each family member′s name applied to the stocking so that Santa (or the family members) aren′t confused about which belongs to whom.
  • A Christmas wreath  -made of mostly evergreen tree twigs, sometimes with pinecones and a bow made of red ribbon is a common Christmas decoration.The customcomes from the traditional celebration of the birth of Christ. Itwas later combined with the harvest and winter solstice festivals in ancient Rome.Wreaths that are displayed at Christmas time are in the form of a circle, signifying eternity. They also serve to wish people happiness in the new year.Christmas Wreaths are decorated with candles symbolizing the sun at winter solstice, with holly, evergreens, red berries, and pinecones, symbolizing the harvest. Itis a symbol of growth and everlasting life. Christmas wreaths can adorn any part of the home, inside or out.
  • A Christmas carol - (also called a noël) is a  song whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas or the winter season in general They are traditionally sung before Christmas. Some carols like "Personent hodie", "Good King Wenceslas", and "The Holly and the Ivy" can be traced directly back to the Middle Ages.