Ex. 2. Answer the questions:

1. What holiday is the Thanksgiving?

2. When and where were the first thanksgiving services held?

3. Why did the Pilgrims proclaim the day of thanksgiving?

4. How did the Pilgrims celebrate The Thanksgiving Day in 1621?

5. What are the features of the modern Thanksgiving Day?

Christmas.

stable [ ] – хлев wreath of holly [ ] – венок из остролиста to blossom – цвести manger – ясли tiny [ ] – крошечный tinsel – мишура to spin – прясть a broad brimmed hat – широкополая шляпа Asia Minor – Малая Азия dowry [ ] – приданое chimney – дымовая труба short bread – песочное печенье bough [ ] – сук
	priest – священник branch – ветка chubby – пухлый robe – мантия

Ex. 1. Read and translate the texts.

Christmas traditions

Christmas is a religious holiday. It is a day on which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. It is a happy holiday. Families come together to share their happiness, attend church, and exchange gifts. In the days before Christmas, parties are held in schools, offices, factories, and clubs; stores are crowded with shoppers.

Cities and Towns in the United States sparkle with bright lights and decorations. Churches, homes, schools, shops, and streets are decorated with Christmas trees, colored lights, Santa Claus and his reindeer, and nativity scenes showing the stable where Jesus Christ was born. Store windows display gifts and Christmas scenes.

Families prepare for this holiday weeks before. They make special foods. They make and buy gifts and wrap them with bright paper and ribbons. They choose a tree and then decorate it with ornaments and lights. Houses are decorated with wreaths of holly, evergreens, and mistletoe. Christmas Cards are sent to friends and relatives. Children hand up stockings to receive gifts from Santa Claus.

So, there are many different Christmas traditions. A lot of them actually come from different countries. People celebrate them every year but they don't realize where the traditions come from.

Speaking of trees most people today have Christmas trees at Christmas time in their homes. You'll see them in stores, buildings not just in America, all around the world people celebrate the Christmas Tree. And the origin of this is completely Christian.

There are several interesting legends that go along with the Christmas tree. One is that on the night of Christ's birth all trees around the world blossomed and bore fruit. That's why we decorate our trees with balls and things that represent fruit.

Another tradition says that all trees went to the manger when Jesus Christ was born where there was tiny evergreen that was crowded into the back and couldn't see past the larger trees and so stars actually came down and settled on the tiny tree and baby Jesus smiled at it.

Sometimes we also hang tinsel on our trees and tinsel comes from the leg­end that there was a woman and her children who were decorating a tree. At night a spider came down and spun webs from bough to bough on a tree and because it was such a precious family and poor, Jesus honored them and he honored the woman by turning the webs of the spider into silver. And that's how we get our legend of put­ting tinsel on the tree.

All of us like to get cards, and we like to send cards to people, especially at Christmas time. This happened around 1846. There was a man named Henry Coal and he sent some cards to some friends, some very small little visiting cards, saying, who he was and 'Have a nice Christmas!' with a little colored design on them. A man named Joseph Krender was a publisher and just 16 years later this became a wide-spread in many different styles for people to buy and send via mail to their friends and the relatives.

Another tradition is to hang stockings on a fireplace if you live in a home which has a fireplace. You hang large stockings there and when you wake up Christmas morning they are filled with goodies, little toys, gifts and things like that. This actually comes from Saint Nicholas (San­ta Claus). This Saint Nicholas was a real per­son in Asia Minor who heard about three beautiful girls whom their father was going to marry to old men as they had no dowry. So at night he went to their home where they had hung their stockings by the fire place to dry after washing them. He drops some gold coins down the chimney and instead of falling into the hearth where the fire is, they actually fell into the stockings which were hanging there. And it became a tradition from then on that people would hang stockings and have gifts put in them.

Mistletoe which is a little greenery leaf, people usually hang over the door or doorway and when they walk under it they are supposed to kiss each oth­er because it's a tradition that once you get under the mistletoe you have to kiss whoever is under it with you.

Santa Claus, of course, is one of the most famous figures at Christmas. He's called many things around the world and in some places he's called "Father Christmas", in Russia he's called "Ded Moroz". So we have many differ­ent names for him. It comes from a tradition of a real man who was a priest in Holland named Saint Nicholas. He was actually the bishop in Asia Minor. There were more churches named after him then any other apostle. Many Dutch sailors met this man named Saint Nicholas and they carried reports back to Europe of his generosity. He was always so good to children and other people. And so they started the tradition in Holland where the people would receive special presents on December 6^th. The tradition is that he was a bearded Saint who would ride around on a white horse carrying gifts for good children and birch branches for bad children. The German is "Sant Nicolas", and a Dutch is "Santer Class" and so when you put all these together you can see how in English they get "Santa Claus" but it's also harder to see how the saint became a jolly chubby character who really doesn't have anything to do with being a saint any more at all. All this happened when the Dutch actual­ly settled New York which at that time was called "New Amsterdam." And they repre­sented when they celebrated a "Santer Class" as they called him as a man with a very broad brimmed hat and a long Dutch pipe and a long churchly robe which they then replaced with breeches, short pants which were common in America at that time.