Festivals in great britain Халиуллина, Кутузова

There are eight public holidays a year in Great Britain, that is, days on which people need not go in to work. They are: Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day, Spring Bank Holiday and Late Summer Bank Holiday. In Scotland, the 2-nd of January is also a public holiday. Most of these holidays are of religious origin, though it would be right to say that for the greater part of the population they have long lost their religious significance and are simply days on which people relax, eat, drink and make merry. All the public holidays, except Christmas Day, Boxing Day (observed on December 25-th and 26-th respectively), New Year’s Day and May Day are movable, that is they do not fall on the same day each year. Good Friday and Easter Monday depend on Easter Sunday, which falls on the first Sunday after a full moon on or after March 21-st. The Spring Bank Holiday falls on the last Monday of May or on the first Monday of June, while the Late Summer Bank Holiday comes on the last Monday in August or on the first Monday in September, depending on which of the Mondays is nearer to June 1-st and September 1-st respectively.

Besides public holidays, there are other festivals, anniversaries and simply days, for example, Pancake Day (a movable feast) and Bonfire Night (5-th November), on which certain traditions are observed, but unless they fall on a Sunday, they are ordinary working days.

New Year in England.

In England the New Year 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. This usually begins at about eight o’clock and goes on until the early hours of the morning. There is a lot of drinking, mainly beer, wine, gin and whisky; sometimes the hosts make a big bowl of punch which consists of wine, spirits, fruit juice and water in varying proportions. There is usually a buffet supper of cold meat, pies, sandwiches, cakes and biscuits. At midnight the wireless is turned on, so that everyone can hear the chimes of Big Ben, and on the hour a toast is drunk to the New Year. Then the party goes on.

Another popular way of celebrating the New Year is to go to a New Year dance. Most hotels and dance halls hold a special dance on New Year’s Eve. The hall is decorated, there are several different bands and the atmosphere is very gay.

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.

First-Footing.

In parts of Northern England and in Scotland the old custom of First-Footing is still observed. Tradition says that the first person to enter a house on New Year’s Day should be a dark-haired man, otherwise ill-luck will follow. It is also advisable that the person should bring with him a gift - a piece of coal, a fish, a bottle of whisky or a piece of bread age traditional gifts.

Curiously enough, in a few other parts of the country, the First-Footer is required to be a fair-haired man. In the past, young men of the right coloring and with ah eye to business would offer their services as First-Footer to households in the district - for a small fee.

St. Valentine’s Day.

St. Valentine is the patron saint of lovers, and on 14 February young men and women declare their feelings for each other. But the tradition is to do so anonymously. Valentine’s Day cards and romantic flowers such as red roses are sent which, although they carry messages of undying love, are always left unsigned. Indeed, some people go to great lengths to disguise their handwriting in order to maintain their anonymity. Many people hope for cards on St. Valentine’s Day and failure to receive any can cause great disappointment.

Easter.

The build-up to Easter begins on Shrove Tuesday. This is the day before Ash Wednesday - the beginning of the 40 days of Lent. On Shrove Tuesday it is the custom to cook and eat pancakes. This is symbolic of using up left-over food - eggs, milk and flour in this case - in readiness for Lent, traditionally a time of fasting and abstinence. Nowadays very few British people actually fast at Lent, but many use it as a time to try to give up something they know is bad for them, such as chocolate, alcohol or cigarettes.

Although Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar, the majority of the British public pay much more attention to Christmas with its traditions of present giving, eating and drinking. Good Friday (three days before Easter Day) and Easter Monday are bank holidays, and the banks and other financial institutions, offices and shops are closed on these days.

Gift giving is more than at Christmas although most children are given an Easter egg - made of chocolate and often filled with sweets or a small gift. Tradition says that these eggs are delivered by the Easter Bunny (rabbit) and it is a popular game for the children to hunt for small eggs concealed around the house or garden.

Fish is traditionally eaten on Good Friday and Easter cake is an iced fruit cake with a marzipan ring on the top.

National saint’s days.

The patron saints of Wales, Ireland and England are, in order, St. David, St. Patrick and St. George. Their days are celebrated on 1 March, 17 March and 23 April respectively. National symbols depicting the Welsh dragon or leek, the Irish shamrock and the English rose are worn on the appropriate days, and you will see small gatherings of the various nationalities having a drink together or celebrating in the streets - particularly when they are living away from their native country.

St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland, has his day later in the year on 30 November. Scotland’s national symbol is the thistle.

Mothering Sunday.

Mothering Sunday, or Mother’s Day as it is usually called, falls three weeks before Easter Sunday. On this day, mother is rewarded for all her work looking after the house and family during the rest of the year. Her husband and children usually buy her a card and a small gift, and traditionally bring her breakfast in bed. Sometimes she will also be taken out for lunch.

Father’s Day, as the name implies, is when Dad gets his treats. Father’s Day is on the third Sunday in June but is less widely celebrated than Mother’s Day. Perhaps this is because fathers are seen to be less deserving than mothers.

All Fool’s Day.

Normally called “April Fool’s Day”, this day falls on 1 April. It is a day when you can light-heartedly make fools of your family, friends and colleagues by playing tricks on them. People send messages intended to mislead, offer fake food, create realistic-looking blood stains and devise a host of other deceptions to fool the gullible.

The joke, however, must be received or believed by midday otherwise it is the joker and not the victim who becomes the fool.

Even newspapers, television and radio programmes join in the fun, publishing and broadcasting amusing and unlikely tales. A few year ago, “The Guardian” newspaper published a whole supplement about a fictitious group of islands called San Serif, with articles on the economy, climate, political situation, weather, etc. But the most famous April Fool’s joke was perpetrated by the BBC’s highly-regarded television documentary programme, “Panorama”. The programme presented an apparently serious report about spaghetti growing on trees in Italy. It examined the problems of cultivating and harvesting spaghetti and included interviews with spaghetti farmers.

May Day.

May Day is not celebrated in Britain to the same extent that it is in many other countries. It became a public holiday only in relatively recent years and falls on the first Monday of May (and not on 1 May).

In previous centuries, May Day, which marked the Spring festival, was a potent pagan symbol and was widely celebrated. Today, in many towns and villages you can still find remnants of the old traditions. Often a local girl is chosen and crowned “Queen of the May”, and people dance round a May Pole - a tall pole with coloured ribbons attached to the top - on the village green. However May Day is chiefly celebrated as simply a day off work by the majority of the working population.

At the end of the month there is another public holiday called Whitsun which was originally a holiday to celebrate the religious festival of Pentecost.

Remembrance Day (Poppy Day).

Remembrance Day, the nearest Sunday to November 11, is observed throughout Britain in commemoration of the million or more British soldiers, sailors and airmen who lost their lives during the two World Wars. On that day special services are held in the churches and wreaths are laid at war memorials throughout the country and at London’s Cenotaph, where a great number of people gather to observe the two-minute silence and to perform the annual Remembrance Day ceremony. The silence begins at the first stroke of Big Ben booming 11 o’clock, and is broken only by the crash of distant artillery and perhaps by the murmur of a passing jet. When the two-minute silence is over, members of the Royal Family, or their representatives, and political leaders come forward to lay wreaths at the foot of the Cenotaph. Then comes the march past the memorial of ex-servicemen and women, followed by an endless line of ordinary citizens who have come here with their personal wreaths and their sad memories. On that day artificial red poppies are traditionally sold in the streets everywhere, and people wear them in their button-holes. They are called Flanders poppies and are the emblem of the dead in the two World Wars. The money collected in this way is way is later used to help the men had been crippled during the war and their dependants.

Christmas.

Christmas celebrations are fairly similar throughout Europe, but each country has its own national peculiarities in this sphere as in so many others.

At Christmas Eve the final preparations for the holiday are made. Last-minute Christmas shopping is completed, cakes are baked, and the living rooms are decorated. Paper chains are stretched across the rooms; paper balls and bells are colored balloons are hung from the ceiling. The numerous Christmas cards the family has received are displayed on the sideboard, window sills. Many families, especially those with small children, have Christmas-trees, introduced to England from Germany in the 19-th century. The tree, traditionally a fir tree, is decorated with artificial snow, glass balls, and chocolate animals wrapped in silver paper. Quite often the Christmas tree is artificial.

English people receive their Christmas presents on the worming of Christmas Day, not on Christmas Eve. This is particularly thrilling for very small children, who are told that Father Christmas (or Santa Claus) himself chooses this present and delivers it personally.

Everyone hopes for a white Christmas, but on Christmas Day one usually makes up to find that the weather is dull and cloudy, with the temperature a few degrees above freezing point.

As soon as the presents have been opened and admired and the oranges, nuts, sweets, chewing gum and chocolate have been sampled, the family sits down to have breakfast. The breakfast thing are then cleaned away, the washing-up is done and preparations are made for the traditional Christmas dinner of roast turkey, duck or goose followed by plum pudding. And so Christmas Day passes in eating, drinking, smoking, watching TV, sleeping and washing up. Occasionally there is a party in the evening, but the real day for parties is Boxing Day (December 26-th), when visits are paid and the leftovers from the previous day are consumed.

Boxing Day, the 26-th of December.

This is the day when one visits friends, goes for a drive or a long walk or just sits around recovering from too much eating and drilling on Christmas Day. Everything to eat on Boxing Day is cold. In the country there are usually Boxing Day Meets of huntsmen in red coats on fine horses with a pack of hounds. They ride over the country-side hunting a fox. In the big cities and towns, tradition on that day demands a visit to the pantomime, where once again children and grown-ups are entertained by the story of Cinderella, Dick Whittington, Puss in Boots or whoever it may be - the story being protracted and elaborated into as many spectacular scenes as the producer thinks one can take at a sitting.