Holidays, Festivals and Traditions

- St. Patrick is believed to have raised people from dead and to have given a sermon that drove all snakes from Ireland (his symbol is a shamrock, a metaphor for the Holy Trinity)

≈ celebrated on 17th March, commemorates the saint´s death after thirty years of leading his mission in Ireland

→ St. Patrick´s Day was first celebrated in the United States in 1737 in Boston; today it is connected with long parades and cheerful celebrations

Easter

≈ Christian holidays through which the British celebrate the idea of new birth by giving each other chocolate Easter eggs, which are opened and eaten on Easter Sunday

→ Easter Monday is a public holiday for which many people travel to the seaside or go watch one of numerous sporting events

Independence Day

≈ one of the most significant dates in the American calendar

→ celebrates the formation of the United States as a sovereign country by signing the Declaration of Independence in 1766 by all Thirteen American Colonies in the middle of the victorious war for independence on the Great Britain

→ Americans spend the 4th July dressing in national colours, decorating their houses with the national flag and letting off fireworks

Halloween

≈ originally an old Celtic holiday celebrating the beginning of a new calendar year associated with witches and ghosts wandering freely among the living who protected themselves by dressing up to resemble the souls of the dead and bringing food to the edge of their town to leave it for the ghosts

- after the spread of Christianity Halloween became mainly a holiday for children who dress up in scary costumes and walk from household to household asking for candy using the typical phrase ´´trick or treat´´

→ brought to the States with the massive Irish immigration especially during the 1840s; celebrated on 31st October

→ typical Halloween symbols include the pumpkin, witches on broomsticks, spiders, skeletons, ghosts etc.

Guy Fawkes Night

≈ a popular day commemorating an unsuccessful attempt of the Roman Catholics to blow up the British Parliament and, consequently, kill the Protestant King James I in 1605 with 36 barrels of gun powder, which were to be set on fire by a man called Guy Fawkes who was arrested and hanged before he was able to perform the task

→ Guy Fawkes´ failure is celebrated on 5th November by burning straw dummies on a bonfire and letting off fireworks

Thanksgiving

• the Pilgrim Fathers ~ a strongly religious group forced to leave England who fled to Holland and later on sailed in a famous ship called Mayflower to America to settle there → during their first winter, over one half of them died due to a lack of food → the native Indian tribes taught the settlers to plant corn, barley, beans and pumpkins which helped them survive → a feast to celebrate the bountiful crops during which the Fathers discovered popcorn making took place

≈ the official Thanksgiving holidays came into being after the Thirteen Colonies had united and are celebrated on the last Thursday of November