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.