Category: Celebrations & Holidays

Saint David is the patron saint of Wales, and therefore has an annual day named after him for honouring and celebrating all things Welsh. St. David’s Day is on 1st March, as he is said to have died on 1st March 589. He was born in Pembrokeshire some time in the late 5th century and lived to a ripe old age.

As a bishop, his travels included a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He brought back a stone slab to use as a sacred object in a new monastery built in 550 and, after that was later demolished, in St. David’s Cathedral on the same site. People celebrate the day by having concerts and parades, and wearing daffodils and leeks ~ St. David was a vegan who only ate leeks and drank water, it is told. His last words to his followers are remembered as:-

Be joyful. Keep the faith. Do the little things that you have heard and seen me do.

sometimes shortened to “Do the little things in life.”

(Image of St. David’s Day parade: Dom Atreides on flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0)

Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, as it is more often called, is the last day before the religious observance of Lent. Traditionally, Lent was a time to be vegan, so non-vegans saw those last few days beforehand (‘Shrovetide’) as a time to use up all their stocks of meat and dairy produce. The French equivalent is appropriately named Mardi Gras, which means ‘fat Tuesday’.

The enjoyment to be had by all on Shrove Tuesday, particularly in the consumption of dairy-laden pancakes, has enabled it to continue being a popular date on the British calendar, even though its roots are in the medieval Catholic religion. As it is dependent on Lent, it is not on a set date but occurs between 2nd February and 9th March.

Pancake races, first recorded in 1445 in Buckinghamshire, epitomise the general merriment that is associated with Shrovetide.

(Image: maxpixel.net)

The seventh Sunday after Easter is known as Whit Sunday, the next day is Whit Monday and the whole week is Whitsuntide, or Whitsun. As it is dependent on the date of Easter, Whit Sunday can fall on any date from 10th May to 13th June.

It is a Christian celebration of Pentecost ~ a time when Jesus’s disciples were said to have been inspired to start their missionary work. Churches are decorated in red, which symbolises the fire of the Holy Spirit and the blood of martyrs.

Until the UK was about to join the European Economic Community, Whit Monday was a Bank Holiday and Whitsun would usually coincide with the school half-term week. Since 1972, it has been replaced by the ‘Spring Bank Holiday’, which falls on the last Monday of May and is therefore a more consistent marker for the school calendar.

(Image: maxpixel.net)

Hallowe’en, or Halloween, occurs on 31st October, which is often within the schools’ October half-term week ~ very handy for parents looking for things to occupy their children’s time! It comes just before Bonfire Night, which adds to the festive atmosphere.

In Britain, Hallowe’en was a traditional pagan celebration connected with the passing of spirits into the next world. Hollowed-out pumpkin lanterns made to look like heads had a dark, symbolic meaning. However, in the USA, Halloween evolved into a time to revel in all things spooky. With the advent of social media, it has increasingly caught the imagination of the British in recent years. This means that you can now buy witchy outfits for your children, along with ghoulish masks and face painting kits, and some parents organise Hallowe’en parties where everything is horror-themed. Orange and black are the prevailing colours.

If your children are brave enough, they may even want to follow the American tradition of  ‘trick-or-treating’ for free sweets from neighbours, an activity which a parent must accompany as the responsible adult, ensuring that the children knock only on friends’ doors, as otherwise it is liable to be seen as begging.

St. Valentine’s Day is the 14th February and it has evolved in recent times from being a day to celebrate romantic love, especially secret admiration, to a day for mother-child love as well.

St. Valentine became associated with ‘romantic love’ in Roman times and was said to have been executed on 14th February for officiating at secret marriages. In the 20th century, the tradition grew of sending an anonymous card on Valentine’s Day to the person you secretly loved and it became a day of many emotions, ranging from joy to desolation at not receiving any cards at all. In time, that’s where the mums stepped in, giving cards to their teenage children to make sure they would not be disappointed.

Today, there are few anonymous cards. Girlfriends and wives receive cards, flowers, gifts and dinner-by-candlelight in packed-out restaurants where as many tables-for-two have been squeezed in as possible. It is a huge day for retailers and one of the busiest of the year for restaurateurs.

(Image [cropped]: Jaggery at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Andrew, a fisherman, was one of the disciples of Jesus. Scotland adopted him as their patron saint in 1320 and St. Andrew’s Day is celebrated on 30th November each year. It is a public holiday in Scotland and the date is thought to have been chosen by a St. Andrew’s Society in colonial USA.

St. Andrew travelled to places such as Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Russia to preach Christianity, for which he was eventually crucified by the Romans in Greece. It is said that he requested an X-shaped cross, rather than the normal T-shaped one. The X subsequently became the symbol used on the Scottish flag.Although he never came to Scotland, some of his bones and teeth ~ known as ‘relics’ ~ arrived there, but they were destroyed in the 16th century. However, further relics were donated to Scotland in the 19th and 20th centuries.

(Top image [cropped]: Lawrence OP at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Married couples celebrate once a year when the date of their wedding comes around. Unlike birthdays, friends and family are not generally expected to send a card or buy a gift for a wedding anniversary. However, a wife may be very upset if her husband forgets to buy her a card and personal present such as jewellery, chocolates or flowers! It is commonly held that women remember such anniversaries better than men, so a wife is sure to have at least a card ready to exchange with her beloved’s offering.

There are particular materials associated with certain anniversaries. These can be very helpful to a husband wondering what to buy for his wife….

• 1st anniversary ~ paper
• 2nd anniversary ~ cotton
• 5th anniversary ~ wood
• 10th anniversary ~ aluminium
• 15th anniversary ~ crystal
• 20th anniversary ~ china
• 25th anniversary ~ silver
• 30th anniversary ~ pearl
• 35th anniversary ~ jade
• 40th anniversary ~ ruby
• 45th anniversary ~ sapphire
• 50th anniversary ~ gold
• 60th anniversary ~ diamond
• 70th anniversary ~ platinum

The Queen’s office will send a congratulatory message on the occasion of a couple’s 60th, 65th, 70th, 71st, 72nd, etc. wedding anniversary, on application.

(Image: PublicDomainPictures at pixabay.com)

Boxing Day is the name given to the day after Christmas Day ~ in other words, the 26th of December. It is a Bank Holiday in the UK. However, there are many areas of life that continue regardless of the holiday ~ football, for example. Many shops open on Boxing Day, too, and start their ‘winter sales’ on that day. These can attract thousands of families looking for bargains.

The name ‘Boxing Day’ is said to refer to boxes of money or gifts which were given to servants and the poor in Victorian times.

(Top image: Pete Edgeler at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

April Fools’ Day is on 1st April each year and in Britain it lasts until 12 noon. It is a morning when, if you play a practical joke on someone, you can declare them to be an “April Fool!” and laugh at their shame. If you dare to play your prank after midday, however, then it is YOU who is the Fool.

In 1957, the BBC decided to play an April Fool on the nation, with this story about spaghetti growing on trees:

This was so successful that it encouraged other organisations, newspapers, advertisers and celebrities to broadcast their own April Fool hoaxes ever since. These appeal to people’s satisfaction of being ‘in on the joke’ and mocking those who are not, until it is pointed out to them, and then everyone can join in.

The best April Fool jokes are ones that the victim finds funny, too. Hurtful or nasty pranks are not in the spirit of the day.

(Top image: Marco Verch Professional at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)