Bme 7

7.
Tétel - Holidays and celebrations - Ünnepek és

ünnepnapok
• family celebrations (birthdays, name days, anniversaries)
• Christmas, Easter
• public holidays
• customs and traditions
Many countries around the world share certain holidays, such as New
Year’s Day, Easter and
Christmas, but not every country celebrates them in the same ways or
even on the same day.
We celebrate birthdays, namedays, wedding anniversaries, March 15,
Easter, Whitsun,
Mother’s Day, August 20, October 23, All Soul’s Day, Christmas and
New Year’s Day.
In Hungary most people get married on a Saturday afternoon. All
couples have to get married
in a registry office, and those who are religious have a church wedding,
too. In the registry
office, the ceremony is led by a registrar, and the couple and their two
witnesses sign the
register. The bride wears a long white wedding dress with a veil and a
train, and the
bridegroom an elegant dark suit with a white shirt and a tie. The bride
holds a bouquet, and
the bridegroom has a buttonniere. After the ceremony there is a
reception, which held in a
restaurant, and in villages is often held in a big tent. At the reception
several kinds of dishes
are served and the new couple cuts the wedding
cake. At midnight the couple change their
clothes and the so-called bride’s dance starts. All the guests dance with
the bride and give
some money to the couple to contribute to their new life together.
Namedays aren’t celebrated, for example, in English-speaking countries.
In Hungary
namedays are almost as important as birthdays and are celebrated in all
families.
At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas is a
holiday full of traditions.
The most important day is Christmas Eve, December 24, when the
family comes together for
the Christmas dinner. The traditional dishes are fish soup, stuffed
cabbage and poppy seed and
nut rolls. The Christmas tree is decorated before the dinner with sweets,
brightly coloured
lights and glass ornaments, and Christmas presents are placed under it.
At midnight lots of
families go to church for the midnight service. On Christmas Day and
Boxing Day relatives
visit each other and have lunch together.
In England Christmas Eve is the time for the annual office party and
many English people go
to a midnight mass, while others go to church on the morning of
Christmas Day.
In Hungary on New Year’s Eve people usually go to parties where they
eat and drink and
enjoy themselves. At midnight they drink champagne and sing the
national anthem. Then
people go to the streets and watch the fireworks.
In England people go to parties or dances on New Year’s Eve. At
midnight they drink a toast
to the New Year and link arms to sing Auld Lang Syne. In London
thousands of people gather
to celebrate at Trafalgar Square.
At Easter we celebrate the Resurrection, that is, the rising of Jesus
Christ from the tomb three
days after his crucifixion. On Easter Sunday morning we eat ham, hard-
boiled eggs and cold
pork in aspic. On Easter Monday boys visit their relatives and friends
and sprinkle women
and girls with perfume or water. They get chocolate or painted eggs, and
chocolate bunnies. In
England many people go to church on Easter Sunday.
The Hungarians celebrate March 15th, the day of the Hungarian
Revolution and War of
Independence of 1848-49, August 20, the day of King Stephen I. and
October 23rd, the day of
the Declaration of the Hungarian Republic.
As far as I know, public holidays in England are called bank holidays
because on these days
the banks are closed. New Year’s Day, Easter Monday and Boxing Day
are bank holidays.
May Bank Holiday is the first Monday in May. The British also celebrate
St. Valentine’s Day,
May Day, the Queen’s birthday, Halloween, Guy Fawkes Night and
Armistice Day.
St.
Valentine’s Day, February 14th, is the day of lovers.
Both Britain and the U.S.A. also celebrate some holidays which are not
common in other
countries, for instance Valentine’s Day (February 14th), April Fool’s Day
(April
1st),May
Day (May 1st) and Halloween (October 31st). An important Welsh
holiday is St. David’s Day
(the patron saint of Wales) on March 1st, and in Ireland, St. Patrick’s
Day (March 17th) is the
day celebrating their patron saint. Midsummer’s Day (June 24th) marks
the longest day of the
year, and Guy Fawkes’ Day (November 5th) commemorates the survival
of the monarchy and
the King after Guy Fawkes unsuccessfully tried to kill him in 1605.
In the United States each state has its own legal holidays but most
states observe the holidays
set by the federal government. These holidays are: New Year’s Day
(January 1st), Martin
Luther King’s Birthday (3rd
Monday in January), Washington’s Birthday (3rd
Monday in
February), Memorial Day (last Mondy in May), Independence Day (July
4), Labor Day
(1st
Monday in September), Columbus Day (2nd
Monday in October), Veterans’ Day
(November 11), Thanksgiving Day (4th
Thursday in November) and Christmas Day
(December 25).
As in Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day is observed in America, a day when
people wear green for the
Irish saint.
Many of the holidays have traditional foods and activities associated with
them, and
nowadays it’s commond to send greeting cards to family and friends on
many of these days.
On Halloween children dress up as witches or in other costumes, make
lanterns of pumpkins
and light candles inside them to scare the witches away. They visit
houses wearing costumes
and knock at the door, and when it’s opened, they say trick or treat. Trick
means playing a
joke, and treat means getting a gift, usually sweets. This day is
celebrated both in Great-
Britain and in the United States.

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Tétel - Holidays and celebrations - Ünnepek és

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