Easter (a Sunday in March or April) (4000)

Easter is a Christian spring festival that is usually celebrated in March or April. The name for Easter comes from a pagan fertility celebration. The word "Easter" is named after Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. Spring is a natural time for new life and hope when animals have their young and plants begin to grow. Christian Easter may have purposely been celebrated in the place of a pagan festival. It is therefore not surprising that relics of doing and beliefs not belonging to the Christian religious should cling even to this greatest day in the Church's year. An old-fashioned custom still alive is to get up early and climb a hill to see the sun rising. There are numerous accounts of the wonderful spectacle of the sun whirling round and round for joy at our Saviour's Resurrection. So many people go outdoors on Easter morning hoping to see the sun dance. There is also a custom of putting on something new to go to church on Easter morning. People celebrate the holiday according to their beliefs and their religious denominations. Christians commemorate Good Friday as the day that Christ died and Easter Sunday as the day that He was resurrected. Protestant settlers brought the custom of a sunrise service, a religious gathering at dawn, to the United States.

Today on Easter Sunday, children wake up to find that the Easter Bunny has left them baskets of candy. He has also hidden the eggs that they decorated earlier that week. Children hunt for the eggs all around the house. Neighbourhoods and organizations hold Easter egg hunts, and the child who first finds the most eggs wins a prize.

Americans celebrate the Easter bunny coming. They set out caster baskets for their children to anticipate the Easter bunnies’ arrival that leaves candy and other stuff. The Easter Bunny is a rabbit-spirit. Long ago, he was called the "Easter Hare". Hares and rabbits have frequent multiple births, so they became a symbol of fertility.

Christians fast during the forty days before Easter. They choose to eat and drink only enough to feed themselves alive.

The day preceding Lent is known as Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day. Shrove Tuesday recalls the day when people went to Church to confess and be shriven before Lent. But now the day is more generally connected with relics of the traditional feasting before the fast. Shrove Tuesday is famous for pancake celebration. There is some competition at Westminster School: the pancakes are tossed over a bar by the cook and struggled for by a small group of selected boys. The boy who manages to get the largest piece is given a present. This tradition dates from 1445. In the morning the first church bell on Orley is rung for the competitors to make pancakes. The second ring is a signal for cooking them. The third bell set rung for the competitors to gather at the market square. Then the Pancake bell is sounded and the ladies set off from the church porch, tossing their pancakes three times as they run. Each woman must wear an apron and a hat or scarf over her head. The winner is given a Prayer Book by the Vicar.

Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday in Lent. It is customary to visit one's mother on that day. Mother ought to be given a present – tea, flowers or a cake. It is possible to buy the cake; they are sold in every confectionery. But it is preferable to make it at home. The way Mothering Sunday is celebrated has much in common with the International Women's Day celebration in Russia.

Good Friday is the first Friday before Easter. It is the day when all sorts of taboos on various works are in force. Also it is a good day for shifting beers, for sowing potatoes, peas, beans, parsley, and pruning rose trees. Good Friday brings the once sacred cakes, the famous Hot Cross buns. These must be spiced and the dough marked with a cross before baking.

Eggs, chickens, rabbits and flowers are all symbols of new life. Chocolate and fruit cake covered with marzipan show that fasting is over. Wherever Easter is celebrated, there Easter eggs are usually to be found. In America, just as in Russia, Easter is a time for giving and receiving of presents that traditionally take the form of an Easter egg. Easter egg is a real hard-boiled egg dyed in bright colours or decorated with some elaborate pattern. Colouring and decorating eggs for Easter is a very ancient custom. Many people, however, avoid using artificial dyes and prefer to boil eggs with the outer skin of an onion, which makes the eggs shells yellow or brown. In fact, the colour depends on the amount of onion skin added. In ancient times they used many different natural dyes fir the purpose. The dyes were obtained mainly from leaves, flowers and bark.

At present Easter eggs are also made of chocolate, sugar, metals, wood, ceramics and other materials at hand. They may differ in size, ranging from enormous to tiny, no bigger than a robin's egg.

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6. Native American Pow-Wows (March ~ August) (1209)

There is a belief that the Indian people gain strength from the spirit of the pow-wow, which is the essence of Indian life and helped them survive for so long. Pow-wow is the Indian word for "ceremony". Most were religious pow-wows, with ceremonial dancing and sacred rituals. Until the last century, non-Indians usually did not participate in the pow-wows.

In 1951 in Sheridan, Wyoming, Lucy Yellowmale was elected Queen of the Sheridan Rodeo. Lucy was the first Native American to be queen, and this marked the beginning of a new, better relationship between Native Americans and the rest of society. Two years after her victory, All-American Indian Day was established. It became a three-day annual event with competitions in tepee-building and a Miss Indian America contest.

The annual Denver Pow-wow in March begins the season of pow-wows. In 1990 it attracted thirty thousand people, half of whom were not Native Americans. In the huge Denver Coliseum, different tribes sing songs accompanied by the beat of a large drum, played by five to ten drummers. Dancers of different tribes show their skills. Dancers with fancy shawls look like delicate flying birds as they raise their cloth-covered arms to the beat of the drums. Grass dancers wear costumes of brightly-coloured yarn, representing meadow grass.

Today people of different nationalities are not only welcomed, they are encouraged to participate in the ceremonies of pow-wow.

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7. April fool’s Day (1 April) (1203)

In the 16^th century France, the start of the New Year was observed on April first. It was celebrated in much the same way as it is today with parties and dancing into the late hours of the night. Then in 1562, Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar for the Christian world, and the New Year fell on January first. There were some people, however, who hadn't heard or didn't believe the change in the date, so they continued to celebrate New Year's Day on April first. Others played on them and called them "April fools". They sent them a "fool's errand" or tried to make them believe that something false was true.

Americans play small tricks on friends and strangers alike on the first of April. One common trick on April fool's Day is pointing down to a friend's shoe and saying, "You shoelace is untied". School children might tell a classmate that school has been cancelled. Whatever the trick, or the innocent victim falls for the joke the prankster yells, "April Fool!"

The "fool's errands" we play on people are practical jokes. Putting salt in the sugar bowl for the next person is not a nice trick to play on a stranger. College students set their clocks an hour behind, so their roommates show up to the wrong class or not at all. Some practical jokes are kept up the whole day before the victim realises what day it is. Most April jokes are in good fun and not meant to harm anyone. The cleverest April fool joke is the one where everyone laughs, especially the person upon whom the joke is played.

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