Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day

In the USA, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.

The first Thanksgiving in the USA was a feast in 1620 shared by the Pilgrims (who had recently settled Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts) and the Wampanoag Indians, who shared their corn , pumpkinand wild turkeys  This first feast was not repeated until more than ten years later.

Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln.

In Sept. 6, 1620 the Pilgrims left Plymouth (England) for the New World on a ship called the Mayflower. They were 110 men, women and children. The voyage took 65 days. When they arrived, the Pilgrims were afraid of the local Native American Indians. But the Patuxets were a peaceful group and did not do anything bad to them.

The first winter was very hard for the Pilgrims: of the 110 Pilgrims who left England, only 50 survived the first winter. But on March 16, 1621, an Indian walked into the settlement. His name was Samoset. He soon returned with another Indian named Squanto, who could speak English and taught the Pilgrims how to plant Indian corn. The harvest in October was very successful and the Pilgrims had enough food for the winter. It was time to celebrate.

Nowadays, Thanksgiving Day in America is a time to offer thanks, of family reunions and holiday meals. A time of turkeys, pumpkin pie and Indian corn. A time of holiday parades, football games on TV and giant balloons.

The First Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 22nd November

Each year, Americans celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday on the fourth Thursday of November. Most families follow traditions begun on the first Thanksgiving, but many have their own traditions that they follow each year. Here are some of the common traditions associated with "Turkey Day."

Travel
One of the best things about Thanksgiving is spending time with family. Many people live far from family members and travel long distances by car, train, or plane to be with their loved ones. Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year!

The FeastTraditional foods are a large part of Thanksgiving celebrations. Many families include the entire family in the food preparation. Traditional foods include turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, cornbread, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Many people serve pie for dessert at the end of the meal. Popular pie flavors are pumpkin, pecan, sweet potato, and apple.

Thanksgiving dinner is a wonderful time to be with your family.

Vegetarian Foods
Some families choose to serve vegetarian Thanksgiving dinners instead of a stuffed turkey. Some people eat vegetarian turkey, which is made out of tofu. Others prefer to eat squash, salads, or other fruit and vegetable dishes.

The Turkey PardonEach year at Thanksgiving, the President of the United States receives a gift of a live turkey (along with an alternate in case something happens to the official turkey). At a White House ceremony, the president traditionally "pardons" the National Thanksgiving Turkey and the alternate turkeys, allowing them to live out the rest of their lives on a farm.

The Wishbone

Some families include breaking the turkey's wishbone as part of their celebration. The wishbone is found attached to the breast meat in the turkey's chest. After the meat has been removed and the wishbone has had a chance to become dry and brittle, two people each take one end of the bone, make a wish, and pull. Whoever ends up with the larger part of the bone gets their wish!


Helping Others
Many generous folks use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to help the less fortunate. Some people volunteer to serve food at homeless shelters on Thanksgiving Day and others donate to shelters or participate in canned food drives.

TV
Television also plays a part in Thanksgiving celebrations. Many families watch the New York City Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The parade includes marching bands, floats, songs and performances from Broadway musicals, and giant helium-filled balloons! People may also enjoy televised football games.

After the Meal
After the feast families often do additional activities. Some like to take walks after eating such a large meal. Some people take naps. Others sit down together to play board or card games together.

Guy Fawkes Day in United Kingdom

Guy Fawkes Night is annually held on November 5. It is sometimes known as Bonfire Night and marks the anniversary of the discovery of a plot organized by Catholic conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London in 1605. Many people light bonfires and set off fireworks.

A firework display to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Bonfire Night. ©iStockphoto.com/Tim Starkey

What do people do?

Many people light bonfires and set off fireworks. As it is the end of autumn, it is the ideal opportunity to burn garden rubbish. Some light small bonfires in their own gardens, while other light larger ones in a communal space. In some towns and cities, the municipality organizes a bonfire and professional firework display in a park. These tend to be very popular. Due to its proximity to Halloween, many people organize a combined party for Guy Fawkes Night and Halloween. These parties often include elements from both festivals, such as a bonfire and dressing up in spooky outfits. Popular foods include toffee apples, bonfire toffee and potatoes baked in the ashes of the fire. Guy Fawkes, a Catholic, was arrested, tortured and executed for his part in the plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Hence many Catholics are more restrained in their celebration of this day. In addition, many injuries and even deaths occur as a result of fireworks being used incorrectly. For this reason, many safety campaigners call for the sale of fireworks to the public to be restricted even more than at present and for more professional displays to be organized.

Public life

Guy Fawkes' Day is not a public holiday. Businesses, organizations and schools are open as usual. Public transport services run to their normal timetables. Some organizations, communities and municipalities may organize public bonfires or displays of fireworks on or around November 5.

Background and symbols

Guy Fawkes Night celebrates the foiling of an attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London on November 5, 1605. The attack was planned by a group of Catholic conspirators, which included Guy Fawkes. The explosives would have been set off when King James I of England (King James VI of Scotland) and many parliamentary members were in the building. The conspirators were later arrested, tortured and executed.

'Halloween' around the world

‘Halloween’ in the United States, ‘Obon’ in Japan, ‘Day of the Death’ in Mexico, ‘Los Finados’ in Gran Canaria. Check this website in which we are told about the different ways we celebrate ‘Halloween’ around the world. Then, let us know if you have ever participated in any of these traditions. What do you do? What do you eat? Any special customs? Tell us all about it!

IT IS HALLOWEEN!!

The Story of Halloween

Halloween is one of the oldest holidays with origins going back thousands of years. The holiday we know as Halloween has had many influences from many cultures over the centuries. From the Roman's Pomona Day, to the Celtic festival of Samhain, to the Christian holidays of All Saints and All Souls Days.

Hundreds of years ago in what is now Great Britain and Northern France, lived the Celts. The Celts worshipped nature and had many gods, with the sun god as their favorite. It was "he" who commanded their work and their rest times, and who made the earth beautiful and the crops grow.

                  






















































        

The Celts celebrated their New Year on November 1st. It was celebrated every year with a festival and marked the end of the "season of the sun" and the beginning of "the season of darkness and cold."

On October 31st after the crops were all harvested and stored for the long winter the cooking fires in the homes would be extinguished. The Druids, the Celtic priests, would meet in the hilltop in the dark oak forest (oak trees were considered sacred). The Druids would light new fires and offer sacrifices of crops and animals. As they danced around the the fires, the season of the sun passed and the season of darkness would begin.

When the morning arrived the Druids would give an ember from their fires to each family who would then take them home to start new cooking fires. These fires would keep the homes warm and free from evil spirits.

The November 1st festival was called Samhain (pronounced "sow-en"). The festival would last for 3 days. Many people would parade in costumes made from the skins and heads of their animals. This festival would become the first Halloween.

During the first century the Romans invaded Britain. They brought with them many of their festivals and customs. One of these was the festival know as Pomona Day, named for their goddess of fruits and gardens. It was also celebrated around the 1st of November. After hundreds of years of Roman rule the customs of the Celtic's Samhain festival and the Roman Pomona Day mixed becoming 1 major fall holiday.

The next influence came with the spread of the new Christian religion throughout Europe and Britain. In the year 835 AD the Roman Catholic Church would make November 1st a church holiday to honor all the saints. This day was called All Saint's Day, or Hallowmas, or All Hallows. Years later the Church would make November 2nd a holy day. It was called All Souls Day and was to honor the dead. It was celebrated with big bonfires, parades, and people dressing up as saints, angels and devils.

But the spread of Christianity did not make people forget their early customs. On the eve of All Hallows, Oct. 31, people continued to celebrate the festivals of Samhain and Pomona Day. Over the years the customs from all these holidays mixed. October 31st became known as All Hallow Even, eventually All Hallow's Eve, Hallowe'en, and then - Halloween.

The Halloween we celebrate today includes all of these influences, Pomona Day's apples, nuts, and harvest, the Festival of Samhain's black cats, magic, evil spirits and death, and the ghosts, skeletons and skulls from All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day.

St. Patrick's Day

Who was St. Patrick?

Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. He was born in Wales somewhere around AD 385. He was carried off by pirates and spent six years in slavery before escaping and training as a missionary.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on March 17, his religious feast day and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century. The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for over a thousand years. On St. Patrick's Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat were waived and people would dance, drink and feast—on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.

St. Patrick's Day Symbols and Traditions

St. Patrick's Day is a holiday known for parades, shamrocks and all things Irish. From leprechauns to the color green, find out how symbols we now associate with St. Patrick's Day came to be.

The Shamrock 

The national emblem of Ireland is the Shamrock. Patrick used the three-leaved shamrock to explain how the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit could exist as separate parts of the same being. His followers took to wearing a shamrock in celebration.

St Patrick's day is marked by the wearing of shamrocks (a clover-like plant), the national emblem of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The shamrock, which was also called the "seamroy" by the Celts, was a sacred plant in ancient Ireland because it symbolized the rebirth of spring. By the seventeenth century, the shamrock had become a symbol of emerging Irish nationalism. As the English began to seize Irish land and make laws against the use of the Irish language and the practice of Catholicism, many Irish began to wear the shamrock as a symbol of their pride in their heritage and their displeasure with English rule.

Irish  Music

Music is often associated with St. Patrick's Day—and Irish culture in general. From ancient days of the Celts, music has always been an important part of Irish life. The Celts had an oral culture, where religion, legend and history were passed from one generation to the next by way of stories and songs. After being conquered by the English, and forbidden to speak their own language, the Irish, like other oppressed peoples, turned to music to help them remember important events and hold on to their heritage and history. As it often stirred emotion and helped to galvanize people, music was outlawed by the English. During her reign, Queen Elizabeth I even decreed that all artists and pipers were to be arrested and hanged on the spot.

Today, traditional Irish bands like The Chieftains, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem are gaining worldwide popularity. Their music is produced with instruments that have been used for centuries, including the fiddle, the uilleann pipes (a sort of elaborate bagpipe), the tin whistle (a sort of flute that is actually made of nickel-silver, brass or aluminum) and the bodhran (an ancient type of framedrum that was traditionally used in warfare rather than music).

The Snake

It has long been recounted that, during his mission in Ireland, St. Patrick once stood on a hilltop (which is now called Croagh Patrick), and with only a wooden staff by his side, banished all the snakes from Ireland.  

In fact, the island nation was never home to any snakes. The "banishing of the snakes" was really a metaphor for the eradication of pagan ideology from Ireland and the triumph of Christianity. Within 200 years of Patrick's arrival, Ireland was completely Christianized.

The Leprechaun 

The original Irish name for these figures of folklore is "lobaircin," meaning "small-bodied fellow."

Belief in leprechauns probably stems from Celtic belief in fairies, tiny men and women who could use their magical powers to serve good or evil. In Celtic folktales, leprechauns were cranky souls, responsible for mending the shoes of the other fairies. Though only minor figures in Celtic folklore, leprechauns were known for their trickery, which they often used to protect their much-fabled treasure.

The National Day of Scotland

 The National Day of Scotland 

When is St Andrew's Day?

St Andrew's Day is on 30th November.

St Andrew's Day is celebrated in Scotland on 30th November, in honour of St Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland.

What does the flag of St Andrew look like?

Who was St Andrew?

St. Andrew was one of Christ's twelve apostles. Some of his bones are said to have been brought to what is now St. Andrews in Fife during the 4th century. Since medieval times the X-shaped saltire cross upon which St. Andrew was supposedly crucified has been the Scottish national symbol.

What is the national emblems of Scotland?

The national emblem and national flower of Scotland is the thistle, a prickly-leaved purple flower which was first used in the 15th century as a symbol of defence.

The Scottish Bluebell is also seen as the flower of Scotland.

What is the National Dress of /Scotland?

The national dress of Scotland is a kilt with shirt, waistcoat and tweed jacket, stockings with garter flashes, brogue shoes and a sporran.

5th November –Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night

"Remember, remember,

the fifth of November,

      Gunpowder, treason and plot.

We see no reason why

Gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot!”

History of the gunpowder Plot

Four hundred years ago, in 1605, a man called Guy Fawkes and a group of plotters attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London with barrels of gunpowder placed in the basement. They wanted to kill King James and the king’s leaders.

Why did Guy Fawkes want to kill King James 1st and the king’s leaders?

When Queen Elizabeth 1st took the throne of England she made some laws against the Roman Catholics. Guy Fawkes was one of a small group of Catholics who felt that the government was treating Roman Catholics unfairly. They hoped that King James 1st would change the laws, but he didn't.

Catholics had to practise their religion in secret. There were even fines for people who didn't attend the Protestant church on Sunday or on holy days. James lst passed more laws against the Catholics when he became king.

What happened - the Gungpowder Plot

A group of men led by Robert Catesby, plotted to kill King James and blow up the Houses of Parliament, the place where the laws that governed England were made.

 The plot was simple - the next time Parliament was opened by King James l, they would blow up everyone there with gunpowder. The men bought a house next door to the parliament building. The house had a cellar which went under the parliament building. They planned to put gunpowder under the house and blow up parliament and the king.

Guy Fawkes Discovered

Guy Fawkes was given the job to keep watch over the barrels of gunpowder and to light the fuse. On the morning of 5th November, soldiers discovered Guy hidden in the cellar and arrested him. The trail of gunpowder at his feet would never be lit.

Guy Fawkes was taken to the Tower of London.

He was tortured and questioned about the other plotters. To start with he didn't tell the soldiers anything about the plot. But, eventually he started to tell the truth.

A Celebration

In celebration of his survival, King James ordered that the people of England should have a great bonfire on the night on 5th November.

The event is still commemorated annually in England on 5th November by fireworks and burning 'guys' (effigies) on bonfires.

Bonfire Night in England

Every year on 5th November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, Guy Fawkes is remembered.

Throughout England, towns and villages....

1-light huge bonfires,

2-let off magnificent fireworks,

3-burn an effigy (a homemade model of a man, like a scarecrow) and

4-celebrate the fact the Parliament and James I were not blown sky high by Guy Fawkes.

Why do we have Guys and Fireworks on Bonfire Night?

The Guy (effigy) is made out of old clothes stuffed with paper or straw. The Guy is a reminder of Guy Fawkes.

The fireworks are a reminder of the gunpowder Guy Fawkes hid in the cellar of Parliament.

Traditional Bonfire Night Food

As well as burning effigy of Guy Fawkes, the bonfires are used to cook potatoes wrapped in foil and to heat up soup for the crowds that come to watch the fireworks

The traditional cake eaten on bonfire night is Parkin Cake, a sticky cake containing a mix of oatmeal, ginger, treacle and syrup.

Other foods include sausages cooked over the flames and marshmallows toasted in the fire.

Firework Displays

In main town and cities, torch-lit processions are also popular on this night too. The procession leads to where the bonfire and firework displays are.

The biggest fireworks display in Kent is the Edenbridge Display. They also have the biggest effigy, a 30ft 'Celebrity Guy'.




Penny for the Guy

During the days before Bonfire Night, children used to take their home-made guys out on the street and ask for "a penny for the Guy" for fireworks. 

Children, in some areas, blacken their faces as Guy Fawkes might have done when he plotted to blow up parliament.

All Saints' Day - All Soul's Day

All Saints' Day

All Saints' Day (also known as All Hallows' Day or Hallowmas) is the day after All Hallows' Eve (Hallowe'en). It is a feast day celebrated on November 1st by Anglicans and Roman Catholics.

It is an opportunity for followers to remember all saints and martyrs, known and unknown, throughout Christian history. As part of this day of obligation, followers are required to attend church and try not to do any servile work.

Remembering saints and martyrs and dedicating a specific day to them each year has been a Christian tradition since the 4th century AD, but it wasn't until 609AD that Pope Boniface IV decided to remember all martyrs. Originally May 13th was designated as the Feast of All Holy Martyrs. Later, in 837AD, Pope Gregory IV extended the festival to remember all the saints, changed its name to Feast of All Saints and changed the date to November 1st.

All Souls' Day

All Souls' Day is marked on 2nd November (or the 3rd if the 2nd is a Sunday), directly following All Saints' Day, and is an opportunity for Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholic churches to commemorate the faithful departed. They remember and pray for the souls of people who are in Purgatory - the place (or state) in which those who have died atone for their less grave sins before being granted the vision of God in Heaven (called Beatific vision).

Reasoning behind this stems from the notion that when a soul leaves the body, it is not entirely cleansed from venial (minor) sins. However, through the power of prayer and self-denial, the faithful left on earth may be able to help these souls gain the Beatific Vision they seek, bringing the soul eternal sublime happiness.

A 7/8th century AD prayer The Office of the Dead is read out in churches on All Souls' Day. Other rituals include the offering of Requiem Mass for the dead, visiting family graves and reflecting on lost loved ones. In Mexico, on el dia de los muertos (Day of the Dead), people take picnics to their family graves and leave food out for their dead relatives.

Whilst praying for the dead is an ancient Christian tradition, it was Odilo, Abbot of Cluny (France) who, in 998AD, designated a specific day for remembering and praying for those in the process of purification. This started as a local feast in his monasteries and gradually spread throughout the Catholic Church towards the end of the 10th century AD.