Category Celebration All Around the World

Father’s Day

People all over the world find different ways to show fathers their love and respect. Father’s Day is a special day set aside to honour fathers.

Father’s Day is a celebration that honors the role of fathers and forefathers. It is a modern holiday, though the ancient Romans did have a tradition of honouring fathers, every February, but only those who had deceased.

Around the world, Father’s Day is celebrated on different dates, though the day is celebrated in a similar manner, usually involving giving gifts to fathers and family activities.

In some countries, children make gifts for their fathers for Father’s Day. Many people send cards that express their love. People also like to take their fathers to shows or sports events they enjoy on that day. Sometimes on Father’s Day, children help out their fathers in special ways, such as by doing extra chores.

Children in Serbia, a country in Eastern Europe, tease their dads on Father’s Day. They tie him in bed and tease him until they get coins and treats.

Grandfathers are honoured on Father’s Day, too. Many people make a point to visit their grandfathers on this day.

Father’s Day is celebrated in June in the U.S.A., Canada, and the United Kingdom. People in Australia honour their fathers during September. In Serbia, people celebrate Father’s Day on the Sunday before Christmas.

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Shavuot – Day of the Commandments

Shavuot is one of the great Jewish festivals. Jewish people celebrate it as the day that God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, the Jewish leader, on Mount Sinai.

Shavuot is the Hebrew word for “weeks”. This festival is also called Feast of Weeks because it comes seven weeks after the first day of Passover.

Long ago, Shavuot was also a harvest festival. It was the time when Jews made a journey to Jerusalem to make offerings at the Temple in thanks for their crops. After the Romans destroyed the Temple, Shavuot became a time to celebrate the gift of the Ten Commandments.

Today, the festival of Shavuot is the time when some Jews celebrate the confirmation of children. Jewish boys are confirmed when they reach the age of 13. Girls are confirmed at the age of 12. The ceremony of confirmation is called bar mitzvah for boys and bat mitzvah for girls. The name means son (or daughter) of the commandment.

The holiday of Shavuot is a two-day holiday, beginning at sundown of the 5th of Sivan and lasting until nightfall of the 7th of Sivan (May 28–30, 2020). In Israel it is a one-day holiday, ending at nightfall of the 6th of Sivan.

The word Shavuot (or Shavuos) means “weeks.” It celebrates the completion of the seven-week Omer counting period between Passover and Shavuot.

The Torah was given by G?d to the Jewish people on Mount Sinai on Shavuot more than 3,300 years ago. Every year on the holiday of Shavuot we renew our acceptance of G?d’s gift, and G?d “re-gives” the Torah.

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Dragon Boat Festival

Gongs, drums, and horns urge rowers in racing boats to go faster. The rowers in each boat follow the rhythm of their drummer. As the drums beat faster, the boats skim over the water like racing dragons in honour of a poet who died long ago.

The poet was Qu Yuan. More than 2,000 years ago, Qu Yuan fell into a river. When people saw what had happened, they put their boats into the water and raced to rescue him. But his body was never found. Ever since Qu Yuan disappeared, the Chinese have remembered the race to find him with the Dragon Boat Festival.

The big event of the festival is a colourful boat race. Each boat is painted like a dragon.

Chinese people throughout Asia and in other parts of the world enjoy the Dragon Boat Festival every summer. This celebration comes in the month of the fifth moon on the Chinese calendar – between May 28 and June 28.

Today’s celebrations symbolize the vain attempts of the friends and citizens who raced down the river to save the respected Chu Yuan. There are half a dozen sites in Hong Kong today that participate in the dragon boat races.

A dragon boat is a huge war canoe traditionally made from teak that has a dragon’s head carved into the bow and a dragon’s tail carved at the stern. The boats can range up to 100 feet in length and seat anywhere from 20 to 80 paddlers, varying in size. A sacred ritual is held before the race when the eyes are painted on, which is said to “bring the boat to life.” A drummer who sits mid-boat and keeps the time of the oar strokes on a huge drum accompanies all boats.

The dragon boat races are daylong events. All kinds of organizations from around the globe such as police, fireman, army, embassies, and even local journalists unions, travel to Hong Kong and enter teams for the races.

A gunshot sets the boats off and the beating drums and cymbals from the crowded shores fill the harbors with noise. The races last all day; on the shores of Hong Kong people celebrate with lively song and dance, rooting on their team.

It is believed that the Dragon Boat Festivals repel evil and bring luck in the summer months.

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The Month of June

June is the sixth month of the year. Some people say that June was named after Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage. Others think that the name came from the Latin word juniores, meaning “young men”. These people say that the Romans held June sacred to young men, just as they held May sacred to the majores, or “older men”.

In the northern half of the world, summer begins on June 20, 21, or 22. In the southern part of the world, this is when winter starts.

Each month is filled with a few important days or events and those days have their own place in the history of the world. Some of the events are celebrated in India whereas others are celebrated around the world with particular themes.  Many celebrations take place in June, especially marriages. So before you enter the sixth month of the year, there are a few interesting things you should know.

June consists of 30 days in total and doesn’t start on the same day of the week — as any other month — but it always ends on the same day of the week as March every year.

Apart from ‘Father’s Day’ and ‘World Environment Day’ there are various national and international events that are celebrated in the month of June. Even the longest day of the year falls in the month of June.

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Mother’s Day

How do you show your mother that you love her? Do you like to share stories with her? Do you do favors’ for her? Do you like to draw pictures for her?

All over the world, people honour mothers and grandmothers in many ways. But in the U.S.A., Canada, and Australia, a special day is set aside just to honour mothers. It is Mother’s Day, and it falls on the second Sunday in May.

On this special day, some children make cards and gifts for their mothers and grandmothers. Other countries of the world also have special days for mothers. For example, people of Malawi celebrate Mother’s Day on October 17. In Spain, mothers are honoured on December 8.

Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother’s Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday.”

Once a major tradition in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, this celebration fell on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was originally seen as a time when the faithful would return to their “mother church”—the main church in the vicinity of their home—for a special service.

Picture Credit : Google

The Festival of Sacrifice

Coloured lights line the village streets. Children play all day in their best clothes, and friends exchange gifts. It’s the Festival of Sacrifice. Muslims in Egypt and other countries are celebrating.

The Festival of Sacrifice takes place at different times. But it always happens at the end of the hajj, or annual journey to Mecca. Once in their lifetime, all Muslims are required to make this journey, called a pilgrimage, if they are able.

Mecca is the holiest city of Islam, the religion of the Muslims. It lies in western Saudi Arabia. The city is the birthplace of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.

During the festival, animals are also sacrificed in memory of Abraham, a prophet in the Bible.

The rites of Hajj are performed over five or six days, beginning on the eighth day of this month. Hajj is one of the pillars of Islam and re-enacts events carried out by Prophet Abraham, his wife Hagar and their son Ishmael, and includes a mandatory visit to Arafat, where Prophet Mohammed is said to have delivered his last sermon.

Legend has it that God ordered Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son. Respecting God’s command, but unable to see himself doing as bidden, Abraham blindfolds himself and does the act; or so he thinks. For when he opens his eyes, he finds his son unharmed and a lamb sacrificed instead. Eid al-Adha is celebrated to commemorate this test of faith. God does not want the flesh of the animal but obedience that is to be displayed by following His tenets.

As we enter this wonderful phase of the year where we prepare to celebrate the sacred rituals of our particular faiths, we must never forget the stories behind them and should endeavour to abide by all that is good in our faiths. As has been said, every ritual if ‘performed with imagination and care, enables people to enter a different, timeless dimension’ — most required in these anxious times.