Great Britain

New Year´s Day – January 1st

St. Valentines´s Day – February 14th – It is lovers´ day. On this day people send Valentine cards to a person (they like or admire) of the opposite sex, usually anonymously, and exhange gifts. The cards have funny, loving or serious contents. Originally this day commemorated the Roman priest (Christian martyr) who gave aid and comfort to the persecuted Christians before he was put to death.

St. David´s Day – March 1st – he is the patron saint of Wales

St. Patrick´s Day – March 17th – he is the patron saint of Ireland. It is a public holiday in Ireland. People often wear shamrocks on that day.

Easter – It is in April. Spring feast of the Christian Church. It is symbol of spring and new life. Good Friday commemorates Jesus´ crucifixion and Easter Sunday commemorates the Resurrection of Jesus. It is connected with pre-Christian tradition, originally it was a festival celebrating the spring equinox. Easter eggs, dyed and decorated or made of confectionery, symbolizing new life, are given as presents. It is celebrated on Easter Sunday in Britain. Children

St. George´s Day – April 23rd – he is the patron saint of England

May Day – May 1st – political parties of the left hold processions and public meetings

Mother´s Day – 2nd Sunday in May – honours all mothers

The Queen´s Official Birthday – June (Saturday after June 9) ( but she was borned on 21st April). There are various ceremonies associated with it, such as the ceremony of Trooping the colour (a ceremonial mounting of the guard in the presence of the sovereign) at the Horse Guards Parade in London

Father´s Day – 3rd Sunday in June – honours all fathers

Halloween – October 31 – In Britain it is celebrated only in the North of England and in Scotland, but it is generally celebrated in the USA and Canada. Children celebrate it by dressing up in Halloween costumes with masks over their faces. Carrying baskets or bags they go to their friends´ and neighbours´ houses and they knock at the door or ring the bell. When people come to the door, children say Trick or treat which means Give us a treat or we will play a trick on you. The people treat children with sweets, fruit or money. The most common trick is soaping the windows of houses and cars. A favourite custom is to make a jack-o-lantern from a pumpkin which is scraped out and in which eyes, a nose and a mouth are cut and then a candle is lit inside. People sometimes give parties on Halloween. The guests wear fancy costumes and masks and the rooms are decorated with paper moons, witches and ghosts.

Guy Fawkes Day – November 5th – The anniversary of the Gunpowder plot in 1605. It is celebrated with bonfires, fireworks and the burning of guys (effigies of Guy Fawkes an English conspirator who with other catholics attempted to blow up James I and Parliament). The plot was discovered and the conspirator executed.

St. Andrew´s Day – November 30 – he is the patron saint of Scotland

Christmas – December 24 – Unlike the Continentals, the English have no traditional celebration on Christinas Eve on December 24^th. A lot of people spend the day shopping. Before English children go to bed on Christmas Eve, they hang up Christmas stockings at the end of their beds and believe that Santa Claus or Father Christmas rides through the air on a sledge drawn by reindeer and comes down the chimney and fills up the stockings with presents and toys. Larger things are found at the foot of their beds or under the Christmas tree. There is also a custom of leaving out mince pies for Father Christmas to eat when he comes down with presents. Christians trees in Britain are often decorated with fairy lights and bright coloured ornaments. Sweets and fruit or sparklers are not hung on the tree. In the rooms holly and ivy is hung as a decoration. It is supposed to date back to Teutonic times when evergreens were hung to allow wood spirits to shelter from the cold. A sprig of mistletoe is hung in a central position or over the door. If you catch a girl under it, you are allowed to kiss her.

December 25 – The most festive day of Christmas is Christmas Day – In the morning children enjoy unwrapping presents (in the Britain the presents give Father Christmas) and at midday Christmas dinner is a great occasion. It consists of roast turkey with chestnut stuffing and roast potatoes and Christmas pudding. This is a special rich pudding made with lots of dried fruit, eggs, suet and very little flour. It is made well ahead before Christmas, boiled in a basin for hours and then heated again on Christmas Day. It will keep for a long time. Sometimes brandy is poured over it and set alight and the pudding is served surrounded with blue flames.

There is also an old custom of stirring into the pudding, when it is being prepared, a coin, a thimble and a ring to bring wealth, work and a wedding to those who find it. There are plenty of carols on the radio and TV and various professional choirs sing carols in old people’s homes, hospitals or outside churches. At teatime a huge fruit cake appears encrusted with marzipan and decorated with white icing. Mince-pies, a special Christmas sweet, are served as well, but there is no minced meat in them. These pies are small and round, containing a mixture of dried fruits soaked in lemon juice and brandy and covered with pastry and baked. They are served hot. On Christmas Day the monarch addresses the nation and the Commonwealth on radio and television.

December 26 is called Boxing Day from the custom in earlier times of giving postmen, milkmen, dustmen, newspaper boys and the like small sums of money, which they collected in their Christmas boxes. For children it marks the beginning of the pantomime season, which ends at Easter. A pantomime is a traditional Christmas-time entertainment but it is not a play without words. A pantomime is a theatre show based on a fairy tale or traditional story with music, dancing, acrobatics and clowning. Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Peter Pan and Dick Wittington are the favourite fairy tales for dramatization. Lots of people go visiting on Boxing Day or to parties in the evening.

December 31 – Some nations celebrate New Year’s Eve but for the English the most important holiday is Christmas. On New Year’s Eve the English people stay up till midnight to see the old year out and drink a toast to the New Year. In London some people gather in Trafalgar Square and celebrate the coming of the New Year with singing and dancing.

 

USA

New Year´s Day – It is day of new resolutions. It is a normal working day and the shops are open.

Martin Luther King´s Day – 3rd Monday in January. Martin Luther King was a black leader who fought for civil rights for his people. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964. He was assassinated in 1968.

St. Valentine´s Day – February 14th. It is a lovers´ feast.

The Presidents´ Day – 3rd in February – on this day all presidents of the USA are honoured

Easter is not a national holiday. Americans celebrate only on Easter Sunday. Most Americans spend Easter Sunday with the family. Many people give children dyed eggs and sweets. In some families they organize an egg hunt – children look for eggs which the adults hid somewhere in the house, yard or garden. There is a traditional Easter Egg Roll in front of the White House in Washington on Easter.

Mother´s Day 2nd Sunday in May

Memorial Day – 4th Monday in May. It honours Americans killed in all the past wars and most recently all the dead. Flowers and flags are placed on the graves of the (war) dead.

Father´s Day – 3rd Sunday in June

Independence Day – July 4th, This is the birthday of the USA. Each city has its own ceremony and parades, band concerts and firework displays in the evening. This day commemorates the singing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, thus establishing the USA.

Labor Day – 1st Monday in September – honours all the working people. It is celebrated by a day of rest.

Columbus Day – 2nd Monday in October – It is anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492

Halloween – October 31st. It is not national holiday. Children dress in funny or ghostly costumes and knock at neighbourhood doors. After shouting Trick or Treat they are given gifts or candy.

Veterans´ Day – November 11 – honours the veterans of all wars. The president places a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington D.C.

Thanksgiving – 4th Thursday in November – national holiday in the USA and Canada (in October), first it was celebrated in 1621 by the Pilgrim settlers of Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts on their first harvest. Now it is an occasion for the whole family to be together. It is celebrated by a traditional dinner whose main course is roast turkey and then apple or pumpkin pie etc. This day is the day of gifts, charites and food for poor people. Since 1947 a turkey so called King Tom has been given to the President of the USA every year. After a special ceremony in the White House Rose Garden the president pardons him and the turkey is taken to a farm in Virginia – which is the retirement home for all recent presidential turkeys.

Christmas – is not a national holiday in the USA, but since most Americans are Christmas, almost all shops are closed and people have a rest day on Christmas Day and New Year´s Day. American of British origin follow the same traditions as their ancestors. People get their presents on December 25 in the morning. Santa Claus is pictured as a cheerful fat man with long white beard, dressed in a red suit. He visits homes of good children on the night before Christmas and leaves them gifts. He is a mythical man who lives at the North Pole where he makes toys during a year. There is a tradition of leaving a glass of milk and chocolate cookies for his youngest reindeer Rudolph.Unlike Christmas in our country, Christmas in the USA is not a family holiday, families invite friends to join them at Christmas dinner and often give parties at Christmas-time. On Boxing Day most shops are open altough people have a day off. Besides the Christmas tree the Americans also decorate their houses with garlands and wreaths and electric coloured lights inside and outside the house or on the trees in their gardens.

31st December – There are many fireworks and parties. One of the most famous events is at the Toimes Square in New York.

 

ČR

We have church and profane feasts. Church feasts are Christmas and Easter. Besides this traditional holidays the Czech calendar includes holidays of relatively recent origin and anniversaries of important historical events.

The 1st of January – the Presidents New Year’s Day Address and the foundation of the Czech Republic (1993)

Easter – Easter is a religious holiday. It celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We celebrate Easter on Sunday and Monday after the first spring full moon. Boys and man go carolling, they have whip (maybe decorated with ribbons), they visit girls and women and they beat them for good health and beauty. Girls give them refreshment, alcohol, eggs and sweats. Traditional foods are sweet cake called mazanec, small plain sweet called Jidáše, sweet cake in a shake lamb.

May Day – the international worker’s festival. It is a memory of the victims of the Haymarket Riots, a workers demonstration in Chicago.

The 8^th of May – it commemorates the end of World War II in Europe and the liberation of Czechoslovakia, fall of fascism.

July 5 –  feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius. In 863 two Greek brothers came from the Byzantine Empire to spread Christianity in Great Moravia (and make the country independent of the German bishops). The „Apostles of the Slavs“ invented the Slavonic alphabet and used the Slavonic language at church services.

July 6 – John Huss, a well-known preacher at the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague and professor at the Prague University, wanted to reform the Church, especially improve the morals of the clergy. His teaching came into conflict with the Roman Church. He was condemned as heretic and on July 6, 1415 burned to death.

The 28^th of September – in 10th Century – St. Wenceslas were assassinated by his brother. St. Wenceslas is a symbol of Czech statesmanship.

The 28^th of October is the day when in 1918 Czechoslovakia came into existence as an independent state, after 300 years of subjugation by the Habsburg dynasty. 28^th of October in 1939 a medical student, Jan Opletal, was fatally injured. 1968, Czechoslovakia became a federation of two equal republics.

November 2th – It is dedicated to honouring deceased family members. We go to the cemetery to place flowers and candles on their graves.

The 17th of November, it is a Student’s Day; students of Universities struggled against the Nazism, the Nazis closed all the universities in the country and sent thousands of students to concentration camps. Several student leaders were executed and universities were not reopened until after the end of the war.

17th of November, 1989 – it was the beginning of the Velvet Revolution; fall of communism.

St. Nicholas Day – December 5th, devils and angels walk from house to house on the evening before St. Nicholas Day and give presents to the children who behave well.

Christmas – Advent begins four weeks before Christmas Eve (December 24^th). The third Sunday before Christmas is called Bronze Sunday, the second one Silver Sunday and the first Sunday before December 24th is Golden Sunday. Christmas Day combines the Christian celebration of birth of Christ with traditional festivities of winter.

Most families decorate their houses with coloured paper, mistletoe and lights. Every family has a Christmas tree, which is decorated with coloured lights, ornaments and star at the top. Christmas trees are also placed in town squares. Somebody has live tree, but somebody has plastic one.

Two weeks before Christmas mothers bake sweets. The most important tradition connected with Christmas is the giving of presents. People sing carols at Christmas and send Christmas cards. Christmas dinner is at seven o’clock – it is fish (carp) soap, potato salad with carp. After dinner people go to Christmas tree and unwrap the presents.

We practise some Christmas traditions too. We for example cut an apple and when there is a star we will be happy. We make small ships from walnuts and candles and sail with them in a bath and women throw a shoe over her head.

New Year’s Eve – 31st of December – it is not a national holiday but people celebrate the beginning of the new year with friends or at home with family. There are many fireworks.