Thanksgiving

Information soon!

you can visit this site:
http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/

Guy Fawkes Night - 5th November

En 1605 Guy Fawkes, un catholique, et ses amis conspirateurs ont essayé de faire exploser le Parlement (alors que le roi James Ier se trouvait à l'intérieur), car ils étaient en désaccord avec la politique du Roi . Ils ont réussi à entreposer 30 barils de poudre dans une cave située sous le Parlement, mais avant l'ouverture du Parlement le 5 novembre, la "Conspiration des Poudres" (c'est ainsi qu'on allait l'appeler plus tard) a été découverte. Guy Fawkes et ses amis ont été exécutés pour trahison.

Depuis, on célèbre le 5 novembre en Angleterre en brûlant des représentations de Guy Fawkes, tout en procédant souvent à des feux d'artifices. Ces fêtes peuvent être des événements de grande ampleur, ouverts au public, ou des célébrations plus petites, privées, rassemblant la famille et les amis dans des propriétés privées.

"Guy Fawkes Night" est aussi connu sous le nom de "Bonfire Night" ou de "Fireworks Night". Au cours des jours qui précèdent le 5 novembre, la tradition veut que les enfants promènent leur poupée de guy Fawkes dans les rues et demandent aux passants "a penny for the Guy". Cet argent est supposé être une contribution aux feux d'artifices.

Halloween's origins

Many hundreds of years ago, a people called the Celts lived in Europe and on the British Isles. The Celts believed that the souls of the dead visited Earth on the last day of October. They had a festival in honor of these souls of the dead, and they called it Samhain.

In time, the Roman Empire conquered the Celts and took over some of their beliefs as well. This included Samhain. The Romans combined it with their own festivals.

how did we get the name Halloween?

In the 8th Century, the Catholic Church declared November 1 to be All Saints' Day. The church calendar had a number of days honoring saints already. November 1 was picked to be the day to honor all saints who didn't already have a day named in their honor.

And the mass that the Catholic Church celebrated on November 1 was called Allhallowmas. This meant "mass of all the hallowed [saintly people.]" It was commonly called "All Hallows' Day."

And somewhere along the line, the night before became known as Allhallowe'en, which was short for "evening before All Hallows' Day." It was then shortened to what we now call it, Halloween.

One last question: Why do people dress up as ghosts, goblins, vampires, and other scary creatures? The people who started all this Halloween business many years ago believed that if they appeared scary, they would scare away the spirits of the dead who were roaming the earth on All Hallows' Eve. These people also carried food to the edge of town and left it there, hoping the spirits would eat that food and not come raid the village.