Traditions and holidays

At first I would like to speak about the traditions in Great Britain. It’s mostly well-known that the British are very conservative and they have a special kind of humor called dry humor. It’s typical, that they have their drinking of tea at five o’clock, their children still wear the school uniforms and they are less friendly as we are. For example they don’t kiss each other and say hallo so often as we do.

They have a lot of feastdays too. I think they want to celebrate everything. They celebrate the days of their patrons – in Wales it’s St David’s day; in Ireland it’s St. Patrick; in England it’s St. George and in Scotland it’s St. Andrew.
Some of their feastdays are celebrated by us too. For example a very nice day – St. Valentine’s day. It’s celebrated on 14th February. St. Valentine was a Roman priest, who helped Christians. In this time was forbidden to get marry, but he made some secret marriages. He was put in the prison and on the 14th February he was beheaded. Now it’s celebrated by all people not only in the Great Britain but in many other countries too. Joung people (but not only they) send some postcards, presents, flowers and sweets to each other and say something nice as “I’ll be your sweetheart, if you will be mine, all of my life I’ll be your Valentine”.
Next famous feastday in Great Britain is Halloween. It’s celebrated on the 31st October and it’s a day mainly for children. The celebrated it by dressing up in Halloween costumes and they have some mask over their faces. They go in the streets, knock on the door and say “trick or treat” and people give them some fruit, sweets or money. If they don’t give them anything, children punish them with some joke. Adults make in the evening some party and they make a jack-o’-lantern from a pumpkin. It looks like a head of the dead body.
In the USA there isn’t something like Halloween, but the Americans have some other feastdays. For example the Thanksgiving. It’s celebrated on the 4th Thursday in November, and it’s a national holiday in the USA and in Canada. Thanksgiving is the oldest American holiday. It was first celebrated in October 1621. In the winter of 1620 Pilgrims arrived from the Europe to the New World. They worked hard in the whole spring and summer and they got a good crop. They invited the red men to a great celebration where they thanked God for it. Now it’s celebrated in the families. Everybody make a traditional dinner with the roast turkey.
Next very famous holiday are Christmas. It isn’t a national holiday as in the Great Britain, but most Americans are Christians, so they celebrated it too. It’s something different as by us. The English don’t celebrat it on the Christmas Eve like us, they become their presents on the Christmas day – on the 25th of December. The next day is called Boxing day. It’s from the tradition in earlier times, when people gave some presents to postmen, milkmen and these people and they put it to their boxes.