With my love for cultural differences and my desire to teach my niece to have an understanding and respect for those differences, I wish to start observing different celebrations/customs from various parts of the world. I've been doing some Google searching, but knowing there is such a large world-wide community here, I was wondering if anyone would like to share with me what types of celebrations you observe.

I'm from the US, so I know how we do New Years, Valentine's Day, Easter, St. Patty's, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas - and I know, for the most part, why. But what about you guys? How do you celebrate those holidays and what other days do you observe that we don't and why? (And if you can mention where you are from.. that'd be helpful. lol)

Like I said, I'm looking for both knowledge on the subject so I can share it with her and also things I can actually do here to celebrate/observe these holidays in different ways to teach her that there is a world far beyond what she sees and experiences here.

The only thing unique I can think of that I actually celebrate is the Queen's Jubilee. Quite obviously it's the anniversary of her reign, this year was the diamond jubilee which seldom a monarch has reached (60 years) and I went down to London to enjoy the celebrations.

We also have Guy Fawkes Day/Bonfire Night here in the UK on the 5th of November, a fireworks fuelled evening of drinking started many centuries ago by the King to celebrate the foiled Catholic terrorist attack of the English Parliament in the early 1600s.

Paddys day.
A whole day of getting pissed.

Athiest day. Which is every day.

We drink!

I'm from Norway and we celebrate 17th of May, where we celebrate the day when we got our constitution. We walk around in http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Oppdal_and_Nord_Gudbrandsdals_bunad.jpg/220px-Oppdal_and_Nord_Gudbrandsdals_bunad.jpg (every region have their own specific) and wave norwegian flags around in the city and eat hot dogs and other [censored]. Besides that we also celebrate Christmas, which we call Yule, and Easter.

I think that's about the only serious celebrations we have. I envy you Americans and all your celebrations.

Well, I would assume (and this is completely just my guess) that the US has all these celebrations because we have such a large population of different peoples living here and our entire culture has been built upon bits and pieces of the cultures those people have brought with them.

Really, I think Americans just want any excuse they can get to party.

Do you guys not celebrate even the secular side of Easter, Christmas, and all the other holidays?

That makes sense.

Oh yeah, we celebrate Easter, but I mostly just see it as an excuse to eat lots of candy.

The only thing i would say is different from the rest of the world is Bonfire night

I celebrate silver eagle day
where we shed our clothes sit on the chair nvde drinking beer

or as some would call it sunday night football

I celebrate the usual christian holidays
Easter, Christmas
and halloween, fourth, new years
anything that can give me a reason to act like a nut i participate in

Community BBQ and Beer for any and all celebrations.

My family is Catholic, so in addition to the common Christian holidays (Christmas, Easter, etc.) we also observe All Saint's Day (November 1st), the Day of Epiphany (January 6th), Lent (the six weeks before Easter), and Pentecost (June 3). Also because of our mixed Italian/Lebanese heritage, we have access to some of the best holiday food anywhere. For example, Christmas Eve is a gigantic seafood feast. I don't know why that is, but it's incredibly delicious.

As an atheist however, my extent of the observance is eating with family (if applicable) and respectfully going to mass (if I am home). I don't actually fast for Lent, nor do I elect to have my face smeared with ash on Ash Wednesday. However, I do still find the Holy Week Masses to be very interesting, Tenebrae (the Thursday before Easter) especially, just because of all the interesting ritual involved.

'Straya [censored]. [censored] yeah.

Along with the obligatory street cricket match.

I live in the UK but I don't really celebrate any of them. There are the religious ones but I'm not religious. There are royal ones but I detest the idea of royalty. They are all just excuses for overblown commercialism anyway.

In Finland everything is celebrated by going to sauna and getting wasted.

I've tried promoting the 20th of August as International Awesome Day.

Admittedly I haven't tried very hard, due to laziness.

Irish here.

New Years - we drink excessively.
Christmas - we put up a tree, buy each other gifts, and drink excesively.
Halloween - we dress up and drink excessively.
St. Patricks Day - We wear green and drink even more excessively than usual.
Easter - no idea what most people do; I'm normally not even aware when it's easter. It's a non-event for me. I imagine other Irish people eat chocolate. I know that it's tradition here to buy a load of booze the previous Thursday and drink excessively on Good Friday too.
Valentine's Day - a lot of couples here take it far too seriously. My girlfriend and I just stay in. We don't do V-day gifts either.

I eat Mexican food and drink Negra Modelo and Corona on Cinco de Mayo.

Weddings ----> pass out drunk on front lawn.

In Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver you can celebrate the traditions of and with any culture.

Most of the holidays that are observed here in México were imported from other countries (mainly Spain) or are the result of the syncretism that occurred after the Spanish conquest.

-Christmas Eve is celebrated (as a gathering with family and friends) more that Christmas.
-New Year’s celebrations involves (as in many other places of the world) copious amounts of food.
-Day of the Epiphany (Also called “Día de los Reyes” or Day of the Kings) involves eating a cake (as in many other places of the world) called here Rosca de Reyes (or Cake of Kings or something like that.
-Then is the second day of February called “Día de la Candelaria”. During this day “tamales” and “atole” are commonly eaten and drank.
-The next holiday that I remember is the independence day on September 15. It involves a military parade (the next day) and copious amounts of food.
-Next is my favorite, during 1 and 2 of November: “Día de los Muertos” (Day of the Dead). It is a syncretic celebration that involves the -construction of altars adorned with food, drinks and several objects, dedicated to one (or more) person that is no longer alive. This tradition varies greatly from state to state, even from town to town.

I am quite sure that I left several holidays out, however I will add them as I start to remember.

Geez... seems like holidays and celebrations have just become days/nights to drink. Well, that's no fun!

You guys don't have special foods or traditions that are specific to your region?
This is what I'm talking about. The cake you guys do for Epiphany sounds like the King Cake done for Mardi Gras. Do you also have a small trinket baked into a piece of it and whomever gets that piece gets to do something special? I'm not Catholic so I've just learned about the 12 days of Christmas this past year to be honest.

I suspect all holidays/celebrations always involved drinking. We've just cut out all the other boring bits so we can get straight to the action.

That's how we do it in Ireland.

"I'm sorry for your loss, he was a fine man. Shall we go for a pint?"
"What? She's pregnant again? Brilliant! Lets go for a pint."
"Ah your back! Was america any good? We'll talk about it over a pint."
"Engaged! Fantastic! Let's celebrate with a pint!"
"Ah jesus I haven't met ya in a long time! Do wanna go for a pint?"

Yes, small figurines made of plastic or ceramic material are placed inside the cake, the person who finds it (them) must prepare the food for the 2 of February, the tamales and atole.

And now that I remember, the nine days before Christmas (if I remember correctly) something calles "Posadas" or "Las Posadas" takes place, it involves praying from one house to another (one house per day) and breaking a star shaped Pi?ata filled with candy, peanuts, fruit and "Jícama" a tuberous root with a sweet flavour. Punch is somtetimes drank but I do not think that is part of the celebration. I think somehting more takes places but I can't remember at the moment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribana

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribana

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Carnival

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_break

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter