Traditions, Customs, Public, Holidays and Food

Most holidays are national holidays, called Bank Holidays, because banks and government offices close on those days. Bank Holidays include Christmas Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day, New Year's Day, and Boxing Day. There are also spring and summer bank holidays. Each nation has additional bank Holidays, except for England and St. George's Day (April 23^rd) is not an official holiday in England.

May Day

May Day (the 1st of May) has been a major festival since medieval times in most modern European countries, but already important in Britain from ancient pagan rituals and reinforced by the Roman day, Floriana, of the goddess of spring­time, Flora, also on May 1^st. The celebrations commonly included the carrying in procession of trees, green branches, or garlands; the appointment of a May King and May Queen; and the setting up of a May tree or Maypole.

Maypole dancing is a traditional form of folk dance in western Europe, especially in England, Sweden and Germany. Dancers led by the May Queen dance in a circle each holding a coloured ribbon attached to a cen­tral pole. By the movements of the dancers the ribbons are intertwined and plaited either on to the pole itself or into a web around the pole. The dancers may then retrace their steps exactly in order to unravel the ribbons.

May Day was designated as International Labour Day by the International Socialist congress of 1889, a rare example of politicians rather than religious leaders subsuming an ancient festival. Since then, May 1^st has been a Bank Holiday in Britain and designated as the Workers' Day but the traditions of the Maypole, the dance around it and the choice of May Queen survive in parallel, organised by the many historical societies around Britain.

Mother's Day

Called both Mother's Day and Mothering Sunday in Britain, this is by far the most widely celebrated such day in Britain although marketing organisations have attempted to introduce many similar days throughout the year. In Britain, only Father's Day in June has had any noticeable impact and Grandmother's Day has a few adherents. Americans have meanwhile succeeded in having at least one relative's Day per month.

This day was originally called Laetare Sunday, and is the fourth Sunday in Lent in the Western Christian Church. In medieval England, Simnel cakes (special rich fruitcakes), as shown, were consumed on this day. The Anglican Church led the renaming of this day to Mothe­ring Sunday, from a reference in the bible (Galatians 4:27).

Today greetings cards, flowers and gifts are presented on Mothering Sunday and children in most Infant Schools usually spend a couple of days breaking off normal lessons to craft gifts for their mothers.

Americans claim that Mothering Sunday started in Grafton, West Virginia, when Anna Jarvis observed the anniversary of her mother's death in 1908 at the Andrews Methodist Church.

Easter

Easter is the main festival of the Christian church year, celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus on the third day after his Crucifixion. In Britain it very much tends to take second place after Christmas in importance and is seen much more as an opportunity to take a short holiday than as a religious commemoration. The English name Easter is of arguable origin; the Anglo-Saxon priest Venerable Bede in the 8 century derived it from the Anglo-Saxon spring goddess Eostre although this is not palatable to most Christians. Although the date of Easter is variable, it always close to the date of one or more of a large number of ancient and pagan celebrations of spring, renewal and rebirth.

The first day of the festival is Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion, a day of fast by Christians from about the 2^nd century. This is now marked in Britain, as on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, by additional sports fixtures and programmes special events at parks, stately homes and tourist attractions. These may be antique fairs, specialist markets of crafts, exhibitions of jousting or archery at castles, rallies of steam-engined vehicles or classic cars, motorsport races, displays by lifeboatmen. and so on. The inevitable joke is that, given the vagaries of the British climate, grander and more interesting the event, the more likely it is to rain.

Easter customs have taken a variety of forms, in which, for example, eggs, formerly forbidden to be eaten during Lent, have been prominent as symbols of new-life and resurrection.

Today, the ubiquitous manifestation of the tradition of the symbolism of eggs is the hollow chocolate egg.

A few towns and villages in Britain have retained the tradition of " egg rolling " where children race hard-boiled eggs right by rolling themdown a hill on Good ^:Friday. Egg-painting with patterns and colours was used to identify an individual's egg. Such 'egg races' appear to date only from the Middle Agesand so are probably opportunities for fun without deeper symbolic significance.

These Easter Eggs appear on the shelves of shops in Britain immediately after the New Year as it has become polite custom to present chocolate eggs to family, friends and acquaintances on Easter Sunday in echo of Christmas gift-giving. Many British people associate Easter with over-eating of chocolate eggs.

The hare, the symbol of fertility in ancient Egypt, a role that was introduced into Europe, is not found in North America and so the marketing departments of various US corporations have now created the Easter Bunny, not so much the symbol of fertility and periodicity (both female and lunar) but more an opportunity to sell soft toys. The Easter Bunny is often central to how Easter is presented to children, along with chicks, another symbol of new-born life in spring. Americans, like many western Europeans, give hollow chocolate bunnies at Easter, rather than chocolate eggs as in Britain.

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