People often go to Halloween´s parties, put up decorations and play games. The decorations are usually black (for dark night and death) and orange (for the autumn vegetables). Sometimes children go “trick or treating“ – they dress like witches and ghosts, and go to the houses around where they live. People must decide if they give the children a treat (fruit or chocolate) or the children will play a trick of them (it is often throwing eggs at the house). 

Guy Fawkes´ day:

• the night of the November 5th
• for days before many children make a doll- “guy“ out of old clothes stuffed with newspapers and rags. Then they parade this around streets and ask passers-by for a penny for the guy.

On the night there are bonfire parties at which the guy is burnt.
Some people cook sausages on sticks at the fire and potatoes and chestnuts in the embers. There are many fireworks set off.
Guy Fawkes was Catholic trained soldier,who put with his friends boxes of gunpowder in a cellar underneath the Houses of Parliament. They wanted to kill the king. But one of new members of this group decided to forewarn a relative who was a member of parliament, so the plot was discovered and Guy Fawkes was found in a cellar. Under torture on the rack he revealed the names of his accompices and they were killed.

Christmas:

• December 24th
• People commemorate when Jesus Christ was born.
• It is a time for buying and giving presents, having parties, and being with family. Children sing Christmas songs called carols. Many children have Advent calendars with little doors for each day until Christmas. Every day child opens a new door and inside there is a picture or a chocolate.
• Christmas holiday begins on 24th December : Christmas Eve. People cover the presents in special paper, and put them under the tree. If the house has a fireplace, children leave their stockings by the fire because Santa Claus (in Britain he is usually called Father Christmas) comes down the chimney. If they are good he leaves presents in stockings, but if they are bad he leaves them a piece of coal. Some children leave a drink and a mince pie for Santa and some vegetables for his animals-reindeers.
• Children usually wake up very early to look in their stockings and for presents around the tree. Christmas dinner is the biggest meal of the day. Before they start to eat, people pull crackers. Dinner is usually turkey with lots of vegetables and then hot mince pies or Christmas pudding.
• December 26th is called Boxing day from the costum in earlier times of giving postmen, milkmen, dustmen, newspaper boys small sums of monay, For children it marks the beginning of the pantomime season.
• December 31th is New Year´s Eve- people stay up till midnight. In London some people gather in Trafalgar Squere and celebrate the coming of New Year with singing and dancing.
• Hogmanay- is the Scottish name for New Year´s Eve. They sit down to dinner which begins with haggis (Scotland´s national dish).

THE FLAG:

• it is known as the Union Jack. It consists of three crosses – of St. George (England), St. Andrew (Scotland) and St. Patrick (Ireland)