HOLIDAY AND VACATION

HOLIDAY

• A holiday is a day set aside by custom or by law in which normal activities, especially business

or work, are to be suspended or reduced. Generally holidays are intended to allow individuals to

celebrate or commemorate something of cultural or religious significance. Holidays may be

designated by governments, religious institutions, or other groups or organizations. The degree to

which normal activities are reduced by a holiday may depend on local laws, customs, or even

personal choices.

The concept of holidays has most often originated as religious observances. The intention of a holiday

was typically to allow individuals to tend to religious duties associated with important dates on the

calendar. In most modern societies, however, holidays serve as much of a recreational function as

anything else. In many societies there are important distinctions between holidays designated by

governments and holidays designated by religious institutions. For example, in many predominantly

Christian nations, government-designed holidays may center around Christian holidays, though non-

Christians may instead observe religious holidays associated with their faith. In some cases, a holiday

may only be nominally observed. For example, many Jews in the Americas and Europe treat the relatively

minor Jewish holiday of Chanukah as a working holiday, changing very little of their daily routines for

this day.

RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS

Many holidays are linked to faiths and religions . Christian holidays are defined as part of the liturgical year, the

chief ones being easter and christmas. The orthodox christian and western-roman catholic patronal feast day or

"name day" are celebrated in each place's patron saint's day, according to the calendar of saints. Jehovah's witnesses

annually commemorate "the memorial of jesus christ's death", but do not celebrate other holidays with any religious

significance such as easter, christmas or new year's. This holds especially true for those holidays that have

combined and absorbed rituals, overtones or practices from non-christian beliefs into the celebration, as well as

those holidays that distract from or replace the worship of jehovah. in islam, the largest holidays are eid ul-fitr and

eid al-adha . Hindus, jains and sikhs observe several holidays, one of the largest being diwali (festival of light).

Japanese holidays contain references to several different faiths and beliefs. Celtic, norse, and neopagan holidays

follow the order of the wheel of the year. Some are closely linked to swedish festivities. The bahá'í faith observes

holidays as defined by the bahá'í calendar. Jews have two holiday seasons: the spring feasts of pesach (passover)

and shavuot (weeks, called pentecost in greek); and the fall feasts of rosh hashanah (head of the year), yom kippur

(day of atonement), sukkot (tabernacles), and shemini atzeret (eighth day of assembly).

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

Public holidays in the united kingdom are the public holidays observed in some or all of the countries of the united kingdom.

Most businesses and non-essential services are closed on public holidays, although an increasing number of retail businesses

(especially the larger ones) do open on some of the public holidays.

Like denmark, the united kingdom has no national day holiday marked and/or celebrated. The lack of a formal founding date

and no constitution may be the reason for the lack of a national day.

Although there is no statutory right for workers to take paid leave on public holidays, where paid leave is given (either because

the business is closed or for other reasons), the public holiday can count towards the minimum statutory holiday entitlement.

Likewise, if you are required to work on a public holiday, there is no statutory right to an enhanced pay rate nor to a day off in

lieu (alternative day off), although many employers do give either or both. Any rights in this respect depend on the person's

contract of employment. the statutory minimum holidays are currently 5.6 weeks a year (including any bank holidays or public

holidays that are taken).

Halloween

Halloween a contraction of "all hallows' evening"also known as all hallows' eve, is a yearly

celebration observed in a number of countries on october 31, the eve of the western christian feast

of all hallows (or all saints) and the day initiating the triduum of hallowmas, the time in the

liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the

faithful departed believers.

According to many scholars, all hallows' eve is a christianized feast initially influenced by celtic

harvest festivals, and festivals of the dead with possible pagan roots, particularly the gaelic

samhain. other scholars maintain that it originated independently of samhain and has solely

christian roots.

Typical festive halloween activities include trick-or-treating (also known as "guising"), attending

costume parties, decorating, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple

bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror

films

COSTUMESHalloween costumes are traditionally modeled after supernatural figures such as monsters, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and

devils. Rev. Dr. Eddie J. Smith, in his book halloween, hallowed be thy name, offers a religious perspective to the wearing of

costumes on all hallows' eve, stating that "by dressing up in costumes and portraying frightening creatures, who at one time

caused us to fear and tremble, we. . . Are poking fun at the serpent whose head has been crushed by our savior." Furthermore,

in the christian tradition, "images of skeletons, ghosts, graveyard scenes, nighttime creatures such as bats— these are

traditional decorations used as memento mori."[90 over time, in the united states the costume selection extended to include

popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic archetypes such as ninjas and princesses.

Dressing up in costumes and going "guising" was prevalent in ireland and scotland at halloween by the late 19th century.

Costuming became popular for halloween parties in the US in the early 20th century, as often for adults as for children. The

first mass-produced halloween costumes appeared in stores in the 1930s when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in the

united states.Halloween costume parties generally fall on or around october 31, often on the friday or saturday before

halloween.

FOODBecause in the northern hemisphere halloween comes in the wake of the yearly apple harvest, candy apples (known as

toffee apples outside north america), caramel or taffy apples are common halloween treats made by rolling whole

apples in a sticky sugar syrup, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts.

At one time, candy apples were commonly given to children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread

rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples in the united states. while

there is evidence of such incidents, relative to the degree of reporting of such cases, actual cases involving malicious

acts are extremely rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous

practices were rampant because of the mass media. At the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free x-rays of

children's halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning

incidents involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy.

One custom that persists in modern-day ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays, the purchase) of a barmbrack

which is a light fruitcake, into which a plain ring, a coin and other charms are placed before baking. It is said that those

who get a ring will find their true love in the ensuing year. This is similar to the tradition of king cake at the festival of

epiphany.

EASTER EGG

Easter eggs are special eggs that are often given to celebrate easter or springtime. As such, easter

eggs are common during the season of eastertide. The oldest tradition is to use dyed and painted

chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with

confectionery such as jelly beans.

Eggs, in general, were a traditional symbol of fertility, and rebirth. in christianity, they symbolize

the empty tomb of jesus: though an egg appears to be like the stone of a tomb, a bird hatches from

it with life; similarly, the easter egg, for christians, is a reminder that jesus rose from the grave, and

that those who believe will also experience eternal life.

EASTER EGG TRADITIONS

An egg hunt is a game during which decorated eggs, real hard-boiled ones or artificial ones filled with, or made of chocolate

candies, of various sizes, are hidden for children to find, both indoors and outdoors.

When the hunt is over, prizes may be given for the largest number of eggs collected, or for the largest or the smallest egg.

Real eggs may further be used in egg tapping contests.

In the north of england at eastertime, a traditional game is played where hard boiled pace eggs are distributed and each player hits

the other player's egg with their own. This is known as "egg tapping", "egg dumping" or "egg jarping". The winner is the holder of

the last intact egg. The losers get to eat their eggs. The annual egg jarping world championship is held every year over easter in

peterlee cricket club. It is also practiced in bulgaria, hungary, croatia, latvia, lithuania, lebanon, macedonia, romania, serbia, ukraine,

and other countries. They call it tucanje[who?]. In parts of austria, bavaria and german-speaking switzerland it is called

ostereiertitschen or eierpecken. In parts of europe it is also called epper, presumably from the german name opfer, meaning

"offering" and in greece it is known as tsougrisma. In south louisiana this practice is called pocking eggs and is slightly different.

The louisiana creoles hold that the winner eats the eggs of the losers in each round.