Holidays in Great Britain

 

                Plan

    Introdaction

1. Traditions in our life.
2. English Traditions.

1. Cristmas.

2. Boxing Day.
3. New Year in England.
4. Banks Holidays.
5. Easter.
6. Halloween celebration.
7. St. Valentine’s Day.
8. Mother’s Day.
9. All Fools Day.
10. Midsummer’s Day.

3. Conclusion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Every nation and every country has its own traditions and customs. And people from different countries celebrate their holidays with a great pleasure. There are a lot of different holidays and customs in every country. But there are some holidays, which are the most widely celebrated in the world. The most popular international holidays are Christmas day, New Year’s Day, St. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter and Independence Day (which is celebrated in all countries on different days, because every state has its day, when it’s Independence was proclaimed). But there are some holidays, which are celebrated only by one or few nations. The most populare of them are Columbus Day (in United States), Hellowen (USA and Great Britain), Boxing Day (in Great Britain)… During the religious holidays all members of the family should be at home, or all family go to visit their friends, or they go to the church. At the state and nation holidays all people of the town or city gathered togather and celebrated these holidays with their political leaders in the squares, parks or in the streets of town or city. In Ukraine, Britain and other countries people exchange presents on some holidays. People celebrate their holidays with a great pleasure but in every country with some peculiarities.

In England traditions play a very important part in the life of the British people.  Traditions make a nation special. Some of them are old-fashioned and many people remember them, others are part of people’s life. Some British customs and traditions are known to the entire world. Englishmen are proud of their traditions and have kept them up for hundred of years. On Sundays theatres and shops are closed, people do not get letters and newspapers. Very few trams and buses run in the streets of London on Sundays. If you arrive in Great Britain you will hear the word “tradition” everywhere. Englishmen have sentimental love for things and traditions because they are an old nation. They never throw away old things.

From Scotland to Cornwall, Britain is full of customs and traditions. A lot of them have very long histories. Some are funny and some are strange. But they are all interesting. There is a long menu of traditional British food. There are many royal occasions. There are songs, saying and superstitions. They are all part of the British way of life. You cannot really imagine Britain without all its traditions, this integral feature of social and private life of the people living on the British Isles that has always been an important part of their life and work.

For example, in many houses of Great Britain they have a fireplace. In English homes the fireplace has always been the centre of interest in the room. For many months of the year people like to sit round the fire in the evening. Above the fireplace there is a shelf on which there are flowers, a clock and some family photographs.

For some days a year offices and banks in England are closed and no one works on these days. These are national holidays that consist of religious and state holidays. No business houses and factories are open on these days. On national holidays, which are celebrated in warm seasons of year, Londoners like to go out of the city into the open air. They go to the seaside or to one of the big parks. Many families take a basket and put their lunch or tea in it. They will sit on the grass under the tree, have their meal on the open air. Good weather is very important. But when the weather is bad Englishmen stay at home and celebrate near their fireplaces. Some national holidays, such as Christmas or Mother’s Day, British people celebrate at home with their family and relatives. On these days they don’t go out on the streets and squares.

There are only six public holidays a year in Great Britain, those are days on which people need not go to work. They are: Christmas Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Spring Bank Holiday, Late Summer Bank Holiday and Boxing Day. But there are some holidays, which are not celebrated by all people. These are Mother’s Day, All Fools Day, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, New Year’s Day and others.

The most popular holiday in Britain is Christmas. Christmas has been celebrated from the earliest days of recorded history and each era and race has pasted a colourful sheet of new customs and traditions over the old ones.

On Sunday before Christmas many churches hold a carol service where special hymns are sung. Sometimes carol singers can be heard in the streets as they collect money for charity. There are a lot of very popular British Christmas carols. Three famous ones are “Good King Wenceslas”, “The Holly and The Ivy” and “We Three Kings”.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world send and receive Christmas cards. Most of people think that exchanging cards at Christmas is a very ancient custom but it is not right. In fact it is barely 100 years old. The idea of exchanging illustrated greeting and presents is, however, ancient. So Henry Cole, founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, produced the first commercial Christmas card in Britain in 1843. The handcoloured print was inscribed with the words “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You”. It was horizontally rectangular in shape, printed on stout cardboard by lithography.

A traditional feature of Christmas in Britain is the Christmas Tree. Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, brought the German tradition (he was German) to Britain. He and the Queen had a Christmas tree at Windsor Castle in 1841. A few years after, nearly every house in Britain had one. Traditionally people decorate their trees on Christmas Eve – that’s December 24^th. They take down the decorations twelve days later, on Twelfth Night (January 5^th).

An older tradition is Christmas mistletoe. People put a piece of this green plant with its white berries over a door. ”Mistletoe brings good luck”, people say. Also, at Christmas British people kiss their friends and family under the mistletoe.

Those who live away try to get back home because Christmas is a family celebration and it is the biggest holiday of the year. As Christmas comes nearer, everyone is buying presents for relatives and friends. At Christmas people try to give their children everything they want. And the children count the weeks, then the days, to Christmas. They are wondering what presents they will receive on December 24^th. Father Christmas brings their presents in at midnight. Then they open them in the morning of the 25^th.

There is another name for Father Christmas in Britain – Santa Claus. That comes from the European name for him – Saint Nicholas. In the traditional story he lives at the North Pole. But now he lives in big shops in towns and cities all over Britain. Well, that’s where children see him in November and December. Then on Christmas Eve he visits every house. He climbs down the chimney and leaves lots of presents. Some people leave something for him, too.

At Christmas everyone decorates his or her houses with holly, ivy, colourful lamps.

In Britain the most important meal on December 25^th is Christmas dinner. Nearly all Christmas food is traditional, but a lot of the traditions are not very old. For example, there were no turkeys in Britain before 1800. And even in the ninteenth century, goose was the traditional meat at Christmas.

A twentieth-century British Christmas dinner is roast turkey with carrots, potatoes, peas, Brussels sprouts and gravy. There are sausages and bacon, too. Then, after the turkey, there’s Christmas pudding. Some people make this pudding month before Christmas. A lot of families have there own Christmas pudding recipes. Some, for example, use a lot of brandy. Others put in a lot of fruit or add a silver coin for good luck. Real Christmas puddings always have a piece of holly on the top. Holly bushes and trees have red berries at Christmas time, and so people use holly to decorate their houses for Christmas.

Today many people also send Christmas cards to each other. The most popular wishes in these holiday cards are: “Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth”.

December 26^th is Boxing Day. Traditionally boys from the shops in each town asked for money at Christmas. They went from house to house on December 26^th and took boxes made of wood with them. At each house people gave them money. This is a Christmas present. So the name of December 26^th doesn’t come from the sport of boxing – it comes from the boys’ wooden boxes. Now, Boxing Day is an extra holiday after Christmas Day.

Traditionally Boxing Day Hunts is a day for foxhunting. The huntsmen and huntswomen ride horses. They use dogs, too. The dogs (foxhounds) follow the smell of the fox. Then the huntsmen and huntswomen follow the hounds. Before a Boxing Day hunt, the huntsmen and huntswomen do not drink wine. But the tradition of the December 26^th hunt is changing. Now, some people want to stop Boxing Day Hunts (and other hunts, too). They don’t like foxhunting. For them it’s not a sport – it is cruel.

In England people celebrate the New Year. But it is not as widely or as enthusiastically observed as Christmas. Some people ignore it completely and go to bed at the same time as usual on New Year’s Eve. Many others, however, do celebrate it in one way or another, the type of celebration varying very much according to the local custom, family tradition and personal taste.

The most common type of celebration is a New Year party, either a family party or one arranged by a group of young people. And another popular way of celebrating the New Year is to go to a New Year’s dance.

The most famous celebration is in London round the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus where crowds gather and sing and welcome the New Year. In Trafalgar Square there is also a big crowd and someone usually falls into the fountain.

Every year the people of Norway give the city of London a present. It’s a big Christmas tree and it stands in Trafalgar Square. Also in central London, Oxford Street and Regent Street always have beautiful decorations at the New Year and Christmas. Thousands of people come to look at them.

In Britain a lot of people make New Year Resolutions on the evening of December 31^st. For example, “I’ll get up early every morning next year”, or “I’ll clean, my shoes every day”. But there is a problem. Most people forget their New Year Resolutions on January 2^nd.

But New Year’s Eve is more important festival in Scotland than it is in England, and it even has a special name. It is not clear where the ‘Hogmanay’ comes from, but it is connected with the provision of food and drink for all visitors to your home on December 31^st.

There is a Scottish song that is sung all over the world at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet wrote it. There are some of the traditional words in this song which a bit difficult to understand, but that’s the way it’s always sung – even by English people!

It was believed that the first person to visit one’s house on New Year’s Day could bring good or bad luck. Therefore, people tried to arrange for the person of their owns choice to be standing outside their houses ready to be let in the moment midnight had come.

Usually a dark-complexioned man was chosen, and never a woman, for she would bring bad luck. The first footer was required to carry three articles: a piece of coal to wish warmth, a piece of bread to wish food, and a silver coin to wish wealth. In some parts of northern England this pleasing custom is still observed. So this interesting tradition called “First Footing”.

On Bank holiday the townsfolk usually flock into the country and to the coast. If the weather is fine many families take a picnic – lunch or tea with them and enjoy their meal in the open air. Seaside towns near London, such as Southend, are invaded by thousands of trippers who come in cars and coaches, trains and bicycles. Great amusement parks like Southend Kursoal do a roaring trade with their scenic railways, shooting galleries, water-shoots, crazy houses and so on. Trippers will wear comic paper hats with slogans, and they will eat and drink the weirdest mixture of stuff you can imagine, sea food like cockles, mussels, whelks, fish and chips, candy floss, tea, fizzy drinks, everything you can imagine.

Bank holiday is also an occasion for big sports meeting at places like the White City Stadium, mainly all kinds of athletics. There are also horse race meetings all over the country, and most traditional of all, there are large fairs with swings, roundabouts, a Punch and Judy show, hoop-la stalls and every kind of side-show including, in recent, bingo. There is also much boating activity on the Thames.

Although the Christian religion gave the world Easter, as we know it today, the celebration owes its name and many of its customs and symbols to a pagan festival called Eostre. Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of springtime and sunrise, got her name from the word “east”, where the sun rises. Every spring northern European nations celebrated the festival of Eostre to honour the awakening of new life in nature. Christians related the rising of the sun to the resurrection of Jesus and their own spiritual rebirth.

Many modern Easter symbols come from pagan time. The egg, for instance, was a fertility symbol long before the Christian era. In Christian times the egg took on a new meaning symbolizing the tomb from which Christ rose. The ancient custom of dyeing eggs at Easter time is still very popular.

The Easter bunny also originated in pre-Christian fertility lore. The rabbit was the most fertile animal our ancestors knew, so they selected it as a symbol of new life. Today, children enjoy eating candy bunnies and listening to stories about the Easter bunny, who supposedly brings Easter eggs in a fancy basket.

Also there is a spectacular parade on Easter. It is a truly spectacular Easter Parade in Battersea Park. It is sponsored by the London Tourist Board and is usually planned around a central theme related to the history and attractions of London. The great procession, or parade, begins at 3 p.m. but it is advisable to find a vantagepoint well before that hour.

On October 31^st British people celebrate Halloween. It is undoubtedly the most colourful and exciting holiday of the year. Though it is not a public holiday, it is very dear to those who celebrate it, especially to children and teenagers. This day was originally called All Hallow’s Eve because it fell on the eve of All Saints’ Day. The name was later shortened to Halloween. According to old beliefs, Halloween is the time, when the veil between the living and the dead is partially lifted, and witches, ghosts and other super natural beings are around. Now children celebrate Halloween in unusual costumes and masks. It is a festival of merrymaking, superstition spells, fortunetelling, traditional games and pranks. Halloween is a time for fun.

Few holidays tell us much of the past as Halloween. Its origin dateback to a time, when people believed in devils, witches and ghosts. Many Halloween customs are based on beliefs of the ancient Celts, who lived more than 2,000 years ago in what are now Great Britain, Ireland, and northern France.

When Halloween night fell, people in some places dressed up and tried to resemble the souls of the dead. They hoped that the ghosts would leave peacefully before midnight. They carried food to the edge of town or village and left it for the spirits.

When Christianity came to Great Britain and Ireland, the Church wisely let the people keep their old feast. But it gave it a new association when in the IX century a festival in honour of all saints (All Hallows) was fixed on November 1^st. In the XI century November 2^nd became All Souls’ Day to honour the souls of the dead, particularly those who died during the year.

Christian tradition included the lighting of bonfires and carring blazing torches all around the fields. In some places masses of flaming straw were flung into the air. When these ceremonies were over, everyone returned home to feast on the new crop of apples and nuts, which are the traditional Halloween food. On that night, people related their experience with strange noises and spooky shadows and played traditional games. Halloween customs today follow many of the ancient traditions, though their significance has disappeared.

A favourite Halloween custom is to make a jack-o’-lantern. Children take out the middle of the pumpkin, cut holes for the eyes, nose and mouth in its side and, finally, they put a candle inside the pumpkin to scare their friends. The candle burning inside makes the orange face visible from far away on a dark night – and the pulp makes a delicious pumpkin-pie.

People in England and Ireland once carved out beets, potatoes, and turnips to make jack-o’-lanterns on Halloween. When the Scots and Irish came to the United States, they brought their customs with them. But they began to carve faces on pumpkins because they were more plentiful in autumn than turnips. Nowadays, British carve faces on pumpkins, too.

At Halloween parties the guests wear every kind of costume. Some people dress up like supernatural creatures; other prefer historical or political figures. You can also meet pirates, princesses, Draculas, Cinderellas, or even Frankenstein’s monsters at a Halloween festival.

At Halloween party’s children play traditional games. Many games date back to the harvest festivals of very ancient times. And no Halloween party is complete without at least one scary story. It helps to create an air of mystery.

Unfortunately now most people do not believe in evil spirits. They know that evil spirits do not break steps, spill garbage or pull down fences. If property is damaged, they blame naughty boys and girls. Today, Halloween is still a bad night for the police…

On February 14^th it’s Saint Valentine’s Day in Britain. It is not a national holiday. Banks and offices do not close, but it is a happy little festival in honour of St. Valentine. On this day, people send Valentine cards to their husbands, wives, girlfriends and boyfriends. You can also send a card to a person you do not know. But traditionally you must never write your name on it. Some British newspapers have got a page for Valentine’s Day messages on February 14^th.

This lovely day is widely celebrated among people of all ages by the exchanging of “valentines”.

This custom came to Britain when the Romans invaded it. But the church moved the festival to the nearest Christian saint’s day: this was Saint Valentine’s Day.

Saint Valentine was a martyr but this feast goes back to pagan times and the Roman feast of Lupercalia. The names of young unmarried girls were put into a vase. The young men each picked a name, and discovered the identity of their brides.

In Great Britain there is a holiday now which people call Mother’s Day. In the old days many girls of workers’ families in towns and from farmers’ families in the country worked in a rich people’s houses. They had to do all the housework. Their working day was usually very long and they had to often work on Sundays too.

One day a year, it was usually one Sunday in May; they could visit their mothers. They went home on that day and brought presents for their mothers and for other members of their families. They could stay at home only one day, and then they went back to their work. People called that day Mothering Sunday.

Later, the workers at the factories and the girls who worked in the houses of rich families received one free day a week, and Mothering Sunday became a holiday Mother’s Day. It is usually in the middle of May.

On that day sons and daughters visit their mothers and bring them flowers and little presents. The eldest son must bring his mother a good cake. If sons or daughters cannot be with their mothers on that day they usually send her presents and cards with the best wishes.

Mother’s Day must be a day of a rest for the mother of the family, so her daughters cook the dinner on that day and lay the table and the sons help to wash the plates and dishes after dinner.

English shoolchildren like April 1^st, when people play jokes on their friends. It is called April Day or All Fools Day. If you do not know much about this day, I can tell you something and describe some of these jokes. Many years ago March 25^th was New Year’s Day and April 1^st was the last day of the New Year celebrations. As the weather changed often during the day in that season and “fooled” people, they began to play jokes and fool their friends too.

There are many April Fool’s Day jokes. One of them is to tell a friend that there is some chalk on his nose when his face is clean. Then a boy or a girl may tell a deskmate than there is an article in the wall newspaper about him. The boy will go to read the article but he will not find it there. And he will be an “Aprill Fool”.

We also play jokes on April 1^st. Usually people are not angry when you play jokes on them on April Fool’s Day. But you must know that some jokes may not be very good. Don’t repeat them and always choose a good joke to play on your friends. An April Fool is a “fool”on the first of April only!

Midsummer’s Day, June 24^th, is the longest day of the year. On that day you can see a very old custom at Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, England. Stonehenge is one of Europe’s biggest stone circles. A lot of the stones are ten or twelve metres high. It is also very old. The earliest part of Stonehenge is nearly 5,000 years old. But what was Stonehenge? A holy place? Or was it a kind of calendar? Many people think that the Druids used it for a calendar. The Druids were the priests in Britain 2,000 years ago. They used the sun and the stones at Stonehenge to know the start of months and seasons. There are Druids in Britain today, too. And every June 24^th a lot of them go to Stonehenge. On that morning the sun shines on one famous stone – the Heel stone. For the Druids this is a very important moment in the year. But for a lot of British people it is just a strange old custom.

Working on this topic I have to conclusion that British people are very conservative. They are proud pf their traditions and carefully keep them up. It was interesting to know that foreigners coming to England are stuck at once by quite a number of customs and peculiarities. British traditions are rather interesting and usual. If you arrive in Great Britain you will hear the word “tradition” everywere in England traditions play a very important part in the life of the people. Englishmen are proud of their trsditions and have kept them up for hundreds of years. They have sentimental love for traditions and things. Englishmen never throw away old things. For example, in many houses of Great Britain they have a fireplace, which has always been the sentre of interest of the room. For many months of the year British people like to sit round the fire in the evening as their forefathers. That’s why British nation is one of the more traditional.   

So I think of Britain as a place a lot of different types of people who observe their traditions.