Portal:Holidays
Main page | Calendar | Categories |
Introduction
A holiday is a day or other period of time set aside for festivals or recreation. Public holidays are set by public authorities and vary by state or region. Religious holidays are set by religious organisations for their members and are often also observed as public holidays in religious majority countries. Some religious holidays, such as Christmas, have become secularised by part or all of those who observe them. In addition to secularisation, many holidays have become commercialised due to the growth of industry.
Holidays can be thematic, celebrating or commemorating particular groups, events, or ideas, or non-thematic, days of rest that do not have any particular meaning. In Commonwealth English, the term can refer to any period of rest from work, such as vacations or school holidays. In American English, the holidays typically refers to the period from Thanksgiving to New Year's (late November to January 1), which contains many important holidays in American culture. (Full article...)
Selected article
Thanksgiving is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks, traditionally to God, for the things one has at the end of the harvest season. In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. Certain kinds of food are traditionally served at Thanksgiving meals. First and foremost, turkey is usually the featured item on any Thanksgiving feast table (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes referred to as "Turkey Day"). Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, Indian corn, other fall vegetables, and pumpkin pie are commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner. All of these primary dishes are actually native to the Americas or were introduced as a new food source to the Europeans when they arrived.
In New York City, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held annually every Thanksgiving Day on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Families and friends usually gather for a large meal or dinner, the result being that the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the busiest travel periods of the year. Known as "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving, is one of the largest shopping days in the U.S. Although most stores actually start to stock for and promote the December holidays immediately after Halloween, and sometimes even before. American football is often a major part of Thanksgiving celebrations in the U.S. with the National Football League playing a series of Thanksgiving Day games since its founding.
Selected biography
Father Time is a personification of time. He is usually depicted as an elderly bearded man, dressed in a robe, carrying an hourglass or other timekeeping device. This image is culled from several sources, including the Holly King, the Celtic god of the dying year, and Chronos, the Greek god of time. Because of their similarity in name as pertaining to parental figures, he is sometimes paired with Mother Nature as a married couple. Sometimes, due to the relationship between death and aging, Father Time is associated with the Grim Reaper.
Things you can do
|
Here are some tasks awaiting attention:
|
Selected image
Credit: User:PDH
Joseph Ambrose, an 86-year-old World War I veteran, attends the dedication day parade for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Selected quote
“ | Kissing is like drinking salted water: you drink and your thirst increases. | ” |
— Chinese proverb |
Related portals
WikiProjects
Major topics
Holidays - Anniversaries - Civic holidays - Federal holidays - Hallmark holidays - Heroes' Day - National holidays - Observances - Holidays by Country - Victory Days
Lists: Christmas carols - Christmas dishes - Hindu festivals - Holidays by country - Objects dropped on New Year's Eve - Winter festivals
Religious festivals: Buddhist festivals - Christian festivals - Islamic festivals - Neopagan holidays - Hindu festivals - Jain festivals - Jewish holidays - Roman festivals
Secular holidays: April Fools' - Armed Forces Day - Boss's Day - Children's Day - Cinco de Mayo - Commonwealth Day - Earth Day - Father's Day - Grandparents' Day - Halloween - HumanLight - Labor Day - May Day - Mother's Day - Naadam - Pi Day - Presidents' Day - Spring break - Teachers' Day - Thanksgiving - Yom Yerushalayim
Winter holidays: Chinese New Year - Christmas - Dōngzhì - Eid ul-Adha - Festivus - Groundhog Day - Hanukkah - Kwanzaa - New Year's Eve - Shab-e Chelle - Sol Invictus - Twelfth Night - Valentine's - Winter Solstice - Yule
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus