Festivals and customs in the UK and the USA

New Year's Day
1st January

People welcome the New Year on the night before. This is called New Year's Eve. All over Britain there are parties, fireworks, singing and dancing, to ring out the old year and ring in the new. As the clock - Big Ben - strikes midnight, people link arms and sing a song called Auld Lang Syne. It reminds them of old and new friends. Celebrations in the USA are very similar.

St Valentine's Day
14th February

People in the USA and Britain who are in love give presents to each other. Different traditions are connected with this festival, for example if the names of all a girl's suitors were written on paper and wrapped in clay and the clay put into water, the piece that rose to the surface first would contain the name of her husband-to-be.

April Fools Day
1st April

April begins with a day of fun and jokes - April Fool's Day. No one really knows when this custom began but it has been kept for hundreds of years. April fooling became popular in England and Scotland during the 1700s. Various tricks and practical jokes are done on this day. One of the great April Fool jokes took place on April 1st, 1957. The BBC TV programme Panorama did a documentary on 'spaghetti farmers' growing 'spaghetti trees.' The hoax Panorama programme featured a family from Switzerland carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest. It showed women carefully picking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry. The joke was an enormous success. Hundreds of people believed there was such things as spaghetti trees.

Easter

Easter is not a national holiday and most of Americans spend Easter Sunday with the family. The Easter season actualy beggins approximately 40 days before Easter Sunday, this period is known as Lent and beggins on Ash Wednesday. Many believers in this time remember the sacricifece made Jesus Christ. There are a lot of secular celebrations, too. E.g. in Washington, D.C., children up to eight years of age may come to the White House on Easter Monday and take part in a competition called egg rolling - pushing eggs on the grass with a cane. The Easter version of Santa Claus is the Easter Bunny. Like Santa Claus, the easter Bunny - usually a person dressed up in a large, colorful rabbit suit - brings gifts of brightly colored eggs, candy and chocolate eggs and rabbits to children. Many parents tell their children that the Easter Bunny lays Easter eggs and than he hides them in the grass, in bushes and trees. So kids race across the lawn bumping into each other and often fighting over who got to the egg first. Watchsful parents make sure that each child finds at least one Easter egg. These customs are observed in England as well.

St George's Day
23rd April

St. George is the patron saint of England. His emblem, a red cross on a white background, is the flag of England, and part of the British flag. By tradition, St George's Day is the day for a red rose in the button hole, the national flower. However, unlike other countries, England does not celebrate it like Americans celebrate 4th July with fireworks. In fact, you are more likely to see big St Patrick parades in England celebrating Ireland's National Day, more than you would see any sign of St Georges Day being celebrated.Independence Day
4th July

Independence Day is regarded as the birthday of the United States as a free and independent nation. Most Americans simply call it the "Fourth of July," on which date it always falls.

Halloween
31st October

All Hallow's Eve, usually called Hallowe'en (Hallows Eve), is followed by All Hallows' Day which is also know as All Saints Day (All Hallows' Day). The next day is All Souls' Day, and the three day period is a perfect example of superstition struggling with religious belief. Halloween was a time for making mischief - many parts of England still recognise Halloween as Mischief Night - when children would knock on doors demanding a treat (Trick or Treat) and people would disguise themselves as witches, ghosts, kelpies and spunkies, in order to obtain food and money from nervous householders.

Thanksgiving Day
Fourth Thursday in November

Thanksgiving Day is the fourth Thursday in November, but many Americans take a day of vacation on the following Friday to make a four-day weekend, during which they may travel long distances to visit family and friends. The holiday dates back to 1621, the year after the Puritans arrived in Massachusetts. After a rough winter, in which about half of them died, they turned for help to neighboring Indians, who taught them how to plant corn and other crops. The next fall's bountiful harvest inspired the Pilgrims to give thanks by holding a feast. To this day, Thanksgiving dinner almost always includes some of the foods served at the first feast: roast turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes, pumpkin pie. Before the meal begins, families or friends usually pause to give thanks for their blessings, including the joy of being united for the occasion.

Christmas
25th December

Christmas is celebrated on the 25th of December in England. During the weeks before Christmas Day, they send cards, watch nativity plays and go to carol services. On the Christmas Eve (24th December) they decorate their homes and churches with green leaves, paper decorations and colourful electric lights. The Christmas Day is the favourite day of all children. They wake up very early in the morning to find their stockings have been filled by Father Christmas and excitedly unwrap the presents before going down to breakfast. A traditional Christmas dinner, which is usualy at mid-day, includes roast turkey, brussels sprouts, roast potatoes, cranberry sauce, rich nutty stuffing, tiny sausages wrapped in bacon and lashings of hot gravy. For pudding (dessert) there's always a rich, fruity pudding which you douse in flaming brandy – said to ward off evil spirits.

Christmas in USA isn’t very different. They also decorate their houses, eat similar dinner and unwrap presents on the Christmas Day.

My opinion

I think there are quite interesting traditions both in the USA and England, but I refuse to take them over blindly. I accept St. Valentine's Day, but I feel Halloween didn’t find any response in Slovakia. Every country has its own original customs and it depends only on peple if they keep it.