What does Russia celebrate?
Well, there’s a holiday that bonds all the nation, which is New Year’s Day. It is the biggest holiday of the year that everyone celebrates. This holiday became big soon after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution since they banned celebrating Christmas. Soon, they realised that there must be something instead, as people needed some magic and festive spirit.
So New Year’s Day became a kind of Christmas, but without the Christian context. Well, even the Christmas tree transformed into the New Year tree. From my childhood, I’ve never thought that celebrating this holiday with all its excitement had something to do with Christmas, but in a different incarnation. In fact, I didn’t know what Christmas was, until Gorbachev’s era, when religion, with the Orthodox Church as its spearhead, was allowed – and supported by the state.
But even today, Russian Orthodox Christmas is a different story compared to what we call the “Western Christmas.” First, it’s celebrated on January 7, instead of December 25, according to the Julian calendar. Secondly, it has no chance to keep up with New Year’s Day. I see it mostly as a religious event, though still a holiday.
I am wondering, what could be next to New Year’s Day in Russia? To some, it could be Christmas. To others, it’s V-Day, celebrated on May 9 (simply because in Moscow it was already May 9, 1945, when the Nazis signed their capitulation).
Yes, I think, May 9 is #2, but it is more official, especially now, when Putin celebrates it in a way as if he himself had defeated Nazi Germany. What a shame! There is even a special term, describing Putin’s Russia’s noisy celebration of this holiday. I’d translate it like ‘Victory-frenzy’, when the past war becomes a substitute for national identity and pride. The current regime has created the Cult of Victory, and to me, it doesn’t smell good, both aesthetically and historically. Too much noise, too little historical truth. For example, Putin now denies the crucial help of the Allied forces, the United States and Britain, in this war, both militarily and economically (lend-lease). Again, what a shame!
Another holiday, May 1, has completely lost its anti-capitalistic nature back in the 1990s. Now, it is just a spring holiday.
Valentine Day has become a huge unofficial event, the state doesn’t promote it, but businesses and regular folks love it because it about love and emotions and devotion and you can’t take it away even if it has come from the West.
Finally, today is Halloween. My daughters have just returned from the dedicated fest at a shopping mall, decorated with the Halloween makeup and full of positive emotions. I carved Jack-0’-Lantern for them, to celebrate it at home just for fun. But beware! The state and the Orthodox Church don’t approve it, linking it with Western values and… even Satanism!
What does the U.S.A. celebrate?
There are not many world-wide holidays. There are only two that I can think of that sorta’ come close. International Woman’s Day, which the Americans don’t celebrate and New Year’s Day, which China almost doesn’t celebrate. The Chinese get the day off from work but the real New Year’s Day isn’t until the end of the month.
There are other holidays the American’s don’t celebrate: May Day was celebrated when the US was a British Colony but not anymore. Back then it was a fertility celebration. Symbolically, young girls danced around a May Pole. Today we have a separate, minor holiday called Labor Day instead of modern May Day. Depending on the year, Labor Day is also my Birthday.
Each week we have a writer’s video call where we decide on that week’s topics. Roger, my co-writer & friend, was amazed to learn that I had no idea what Boxing Day was until I was in my thirties. It’s simply not a holiday in the US and there is no similar holiday on our calendar.
Holidays are contrived days off work anyhow. Many companies in the US have gone to a system of personal days. So, if you’re sick, or it’s a holiday, or the kids have an event, take a personal day. I like that system. It’s far more flexible and it’s based on your needs, not on what the Catholic Church decreed a thousand years ago.
What does Britain celebrate?
We have little going for us at this time, but I have to say we still love to party! Whether we light up the sky with fireworks, dance in the streets or in a field, or take a quiet moment just to reflect, we reveal a different side to British life.
🕰️ Every year, on November 11th, at 11am, us Brits stop what we are doing and stand silent for two minutes, to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice, those who gave their lives during war. We wear poppies, and there are poppies everywhere, reminding us all that freedom has a price that must never be forgotten.
💥Just a few days earlier, on November 5th, we have Guy Fawkes Night, celebrating the failed attempt, back in 1605, to blow up Parliament. Some say it’s a shame they failed, but we love setting off fireworks, lighting huge bonfires, and watching the skies come alive.
🎅🏻Christmas is huge, with eating and drinking to excess both on the day itself, and the next day, Boxing Day, (about which few of us know anything), but it’s a national holiday where we eat and drink to excess again. And once our bodies say: “no more food”, we eat mince pies. Several of them.
🪇💃🏼In August, the streets of London come to life with the Notting Hill Carnival, one of the world’s largest street festivals, celebrating diversity, freedom, and unity through dance, dazzling costumes, and the irresistible rhythms of calypso, reggae and soca. It usually includes several arrests for drug offences.
🎺 🎻 No celebration quite captures Britain’s creative pulse like Glastonbury, the now-legendary music festival held in a giant field in Somerset. Some of the world’s best acts appear, and rain or shine, it’s pure British festival spirit. Or as I see it, music, mud and magic. It usually includes several arrests for drug offences.
🎼🎶 However, my personal favourite is The Proms, another music festival, though mainly classical music concerts, that take over the Royal Albert Hall between June and September. From sweeping symphonies to exhilarating film scores, the best music is performed by the best musicians in the world. It all ends with the “Last Night at the Proms”, where the crowd waves their Union Jack flags, and sing along with traditional tunes including “Land of Hope and Glory”, which most Brits believe should be our national anthem. Pure British festival spirit. And no drug offences.
We’re not good at much these days, but boy, we still know how to celebrate…..