Festivals, traditions, customs and habits in the UK, the USA and the ČR

1. UK:

1.1 New Year’s Eve & New Year’s Day
• New Year’s Eve is eve before New Year’s Day
• People traditionally take a shower in the fountains on Trafalgar Square
• in Scotland called Hogmanay

1.2 Valentine’s day
• many people send a card to the one they love or someone whom they have fallen in love with
• these cards are usually unsigned - so people spent a lot of time on trying to guess who has sent them

1.3 Lent
• the day before lent is called is Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) - people usually eat pancakes
• pancake is a flat cake made from thin batter (milk, flour and eggs) and cooked on both sides usually in a frying pan
• in some towns hold pancake races on this day - people run through the streets holding a frying pan and throwing the pancake in the air and who drops the pancake looses the race
• Lent starts with Ash Wednesday
• this habit refers to the time when Christ went into desert and fasted for forty days
• today this habit is not so usual - people are not able to stay forty days without food - and from this habit is today only eating pancakes

1.4 Easter
• first Sunday after first spring full moon
• Palm Sunday - the Sunday before Easter celebrated in commemoration of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem
• Good Friday - eating cross buns - bought in bakers, toasted and eaten with butter
• Easter Sunday - celebrate the idea of new birth - giving each other chocolate eggs
• Easter Monday (holiday) people travel to seaside - watch sport events such as football or horse-racing

1.5 May Day
• 1st May - celebrate the end of winter
• public holiday in honour of working people
• people made Maypoles - tall ribbon-wreathed pole - usually forming a centres for dances
• dancers are dancing traditional dances such as a Morris dance

1.6 Halloween
• Hallowe’en means “holy evening” - old Celtic feast
• 31st October - the eve of All Saints’ Day or All Hallows Day
• people mainly children are dressed up in disguise to pretend that they are ghosts or witches
• connected with witches and ghosts
• people cut horrible faces from potatoes, gourd and other vegetables and put candle inside, which shines through the eyes, nose and mouth
• outside the house are huge, orange, carved pumpkins with candles lit inside
• some games such as trying to eat an apple from a bucket of water without using hands

1.7 Guy Fawkes Night
• 5th November - from history (see )
• people made fireworks and bonfires and throw a dummy into it - dummy is called “guy” (like Guy Fawkes)
• children collect money to have fireworks - they say “Penny for the guy”
• now many fireworks are organised by the local councils to avoid the danger of accidents
• history: In 1605 King James I. was on the throne. As a Protestant, he was very unpopular with Roman Catholics. Some of them planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament on 5th November of that year, when the King was going to open Parliament. Under the House of Lords they had stored thirty-six barrels of gun powder , which were to be exploded by a man called Guy Fawkes. However one of the plotters spoke about these plans and Fawkes was discovered, arrested and later hanged.

1.8 Remembrance Sunday
• formerly Armistice Day, or Poppy Day
• the Sunday nearest to 11th November - commemorating the armistice of 11th November 1918 terminating the First World War, and all those who died in the two World Wars
• a two-minute silence is observer at 11 am
• people wear an artificial poppy on that day - originally the poppies symbolised the soldiers who died in the cornfields of Flanders , Belgium, in the First World War

1.9 Christmas
• 24th December - Christmas Eve
• 25th December - Christmas Day with Christmas morning
• 26th December - Boxing Day
• most important festival of the year - it combines Christian celebration of the birth of Christ and traditional festivities of winter
• traditions - most important is giving presents; Christmas tree came from Norway - in the corner of the front room, glittering with coloured lights and decorations; families decorate their houses with brightly coloured paper or holly
• on the Sunday before Christmas many churches hold a carol service where special hymns are sung
• sometimes carol-singers can be heard on the streets as they collect money for charity
• on Christmas Eve children let a long sock or stocking at the end of their bed and they hope that Father Christmas (Santa Claus) will come down the chimney during the night and bring them small presents, fruit and nuts - no traditional celebration
• at Christmas morning are presents found under the Christmas tree
• on Christmas Day the family will sit down to a big turkey dinner followed by Christmas pudding
• they will probably pull a cracker with another member of the family - it will make a loud crack and a coloured hat, small toy and joke will fall out
• afternoon they watch the Queen on television as she delivers her traditional Christmas message to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth
• at tea-time people can eat a piece of Christmas cake or eat hot mince pie
• on Boxing Day people visit friends and relatives or some of the many sporting events
• on Boxing Day it is also usual to give a present of money to tradesmen - the milkman, the postman, etc.
• people usually go to a pantomime on that day - based on traditional fairy tale, especially for children - these tales come from all over the world - “The Sleeping Beauty” from Persia, “Little Red Ridding Hood” was written by Brothers Grimm of Germany, etc.

1.10 Some other special days
• Twelfth Night - 6th January
• April Fool’s Day - 1st April
• Mother’s Day or Mothering Sunday - second Sunday in May
• Father’s Day - third Sunday in June
• Bank Holidays - public holidays when banks, post offices, shops and some attractions are closed. Bank holidays remain constant each year, i.e. they always occur on Monday (the late Spring Bank Holiday is the last Monday in May), but the date changes each year
• Midsummer Dar - 24th June - ceremonies in honour of the Sun have been held from the earliest times. This day is preceded by Midsummer Night when supernatural beings are said to wander about.

1.11 Special local feasts
• St. David’s Day - 1st March - the patron of Wales
• Sr. Patrick’s Day - 17th March - the patron of Ireland
• St. George’s Day - 23rd April - the patron of England
• The Queen’s Official Birthday - Saturday after 9th June
• St. Andrew’s Day - 30th November - the patron of Scotland

2. USA:
Habits in USA came from UK so they are in some things similar, but the most of people in USA celebrate all festivals in private in their homes. Each of holidays is in American opportunity for inviting a lot of friends, but also strangers, to your hose, which undergoes a thorough cleaning and is decorated, before the party, in keeping with the celebration. At the party, people leave behind their feeling of loneliness and forget about the usual worries, however boring party may be. Here is the list of holidays, that are different from celebration in UK and some holidays, that are originally American.

2.1 New Year’s Eve & New Year’s Day
• almost the same, but no swimming in fountains on Trafalgar square

2.2 Lent
• is not usually held

2.3 Remembrance Sunday
• in USA is this called Veterans Day

2.4 Christmas
• in America Christmas are more commercial than all over the world
• Santa Claus is modern - so he can use a helicopter and land before supermarket
• small children can carry cans of food to the zoo, for a change, which advertised a project “Christmas Also for Animals”
• the fairy-tale atmosphere which all Americans, irrespective of age, love so much is created by thousand of electric lights - people use them to decorate houses on the outside. They make glittering coloured gables , paths and streets

2.5 Special American holidays
In the USA there are some holidays, that are only “American”
2.5.1 Independence Day
• celebrated till Declaration of Independence on 4th July 1776
• marks the birth of a free and independent United States of America
• each city organises its own ceremony - parades and festivals of all kinds - outdoor stage shows, boat races, various funny competitions (three-legged races - a race between pairs in which each contestant has 1 leg tied to 1 of his/her partner’s leg, water-melon eating contests, etc.), folk dancing and lively music everywhere
• in the evening, there are fireworks to illuminate the skies

2.5.2 Thanksgiving Day
• first celebrated in 1621 by those of Pilgrim Fathers (English colonists who settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620), who survived hard winter of 1620-1621 and they wanted to thank the God
• until 1863 celebrated irregularly and on the regional basis, but President Lincoln’s National Thanksgiving Proclamation made it a part of American tradition
• today it is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November
• on this day is big family dinner consists of roast turkey with dressing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, milk and coffee

2.5.3 Other American holidays
• Martin Luther King Day
• President’s Day
• Memorial Day
• Labour Day - a first Monday in September observed as a public holiday
• Columbus Day

3. ČR:
Czech Republic has other traditions than GB or USA so some festivals are different or they are not celebrated, but nowadays some American traditions are used in our country. Before few years nobody knows what is Halloween, but today some families celebrate this. Here is the list of holidays, that are different from celebration in UK and USA and some holidays that are originally Czech.

3.1 New Year’s Eve & New Year’s Day
• celebrated by fireworks and drinking fizz (effervescent wine)
• New Year’s Day is also day of establishment of Czech republic in 1993

3.2 Valentine’s day
• some people have the same way to celebrate this as in UK or USA, but it is not so usual

3.3 Lent
• lent was also celebrated in ÈR, but today it is not so usual
• the days have other names (Ash Wednesday - popeleční středa, etc.)

3.4 Easter
• on Easter is another tradition than in UK or USA - on Easter Monday men beats women with “pomlázka” and they become coloured eggs
3.5 May Day

• 1st May is here more day of working people than celebration of end of winter

3.6 Halloween
• Halloween is one of traditions, that came from USA - majority of people do not celebrate this, but young families are starting to celebrate this
3.7 Guy Fawkes Night
• this is traditional British celebration and is not celebrated in ÈR
3.8 Remembrance Sunday
• this is traditional British and American celebration and is not celebrated in ČR

3.9 Christmas
• Christmas are her different than in UK or USA
• 24th December - Christmas Day, Christmas Eve
• 25th December - second Christmas feast, Boží hod
• 26th December - third Christmas feast
• on 23rd or 24th December family decorates Christmas tree with some glass or straw decorations and electric lights or candles
• at the evening on 24th December comes “Ježíšek” and brings presents
• children find them usually after traditional dinner which consists of fried carp with potato salad
• 25th December is time to visit relatives

3.10 Some other holidays:
3.10.1 Day of liberation from fascism
• 8th May
• celebration of coming allied armies into Czech Republic in 1945 and the end of the Second World War here
3.10.2 Day of Cyril and Metodìj
• 6th July
• they brought Christianity into Big Moravia, created new writing and language
3.10.3 Day of master Jan Hus
• 7th July
• he was burned on this day in 1415, because of his meaning about church
3.10.4 Day of founding independent Czechoslovakian state
• 28th October
• in 1918 after First World War was founded Czechoslovakian Republic