19._FESTIVALS_AND_CELEBRATIONS

When the Pilgrim Fathers arrived, they called their new home New England, but there were not the first people. The Indians were there first. Sometimes the Pilgrims fought with them but on the other hand they also learned a lot from them. For example, how to grow and cook new kinds of fruit and vegetables.

Unfortunately, many of the Pilgrims died because it was very cold winter and they had a little food. In spring they started to grow food, helped by friendly Indians and in autumn of 1621 they celebrated their first harvest. The Pilgrims wanted to five thanks, not only for the harvest, but for their new home, new life and new friends.

The date of Thanksgiving Day in the USA is now the fourth Thursday in November. Most American and Canadian families still have a Thanksgiving Day dinner with their family. They have turkey, autumn vegetables and pumpkin pie. In Canada they celebrate Thanksgiving the second Monday in October.

HALLOWEEN

Halloween is a celebration observed in a number of countries on 31 October.

In November, winter is near, and hundreds of years ago people believed that bad spirits, like ghosts, came in winter. They wanted the bad spirits to go away, so they made fires outside and used big autumn fruit or vegetables to make jack o’lanterns.

To make a jack o’lantern, people cut a hole in a large fruit - usually a pumpking. Then they put a candle in the hole, and cut a face in the side so the light was easy to see.

Another thing people did, to make the bad spirits go away, was to dress like witches and ghosts.

Children still do this if they go to Hallowe’en parties. People often put up decorations for Hallowe’en parties, and play games. The decorations are usually black (for dark nigts and death) and orange (for the autumn vegetables).

Hallowe’en party they play a trick on somebody, trick like:

“Bobbing for apples” someone puts water and apples in a big bowl and someone has to take an apple out of the water with their teeth.

They can put toothpaste on the door handle.

They can put toilet paper around their car which is standing outside.

They can put flour on the doormat on front of the mouse.

In Canada and the USA, and sometimes in Britain, children go “trick or treating”. They dress like witches and ghosts, and go to the houses around where they live, often in a small group. When someone answers the door, the children say: “Trick or treat?” This means that the person in the house must decide. Either they give the children a treat (like fruit or chocolate) or the children will play a trick on them. For a trick the children sometimes throw something like an egg at the house.

THE FOURTH OF JULY

During the 17. and 18. centuries, many people sailed from England to America and started a new life there. American colonies wanted to be free from England and they wanted their government to be in America.

They also did not send money to England and were very angry about this. So British soldiers fires guns at some people in Boston, and in 1773 there was the famous Boston Tea Party. A tea-ship came to Boston and there was a fight about paying taxes on the area. Over three hundred boxes of tea went into the water.