FA CT F I L E S

Seasons and
Celebrations Seasons and

Seasons and celebrations  Jackie Maguire

In English-speaking countries around
the world people celebrate Easter,
Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and other
Celebrations
special days. Some celebrations are
new, like Remembrance Day and Mother’s Day; others, like Jac kie M aguire
the summer solstice, go back thousands of years.

What happens on these special days? What do people eat,

where do they go, what do they do? Why is there a special
day for eating pancakes? Who is the ‘guy’ that children take
onto the streets in November? And where do many people
like to spend the shortest night of the year in England?
Come on a journey through a year of celebrations, from
New Year’s Eve to Christmas.  (Word count 6,508)

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 seasons and
c e l e b r at i o n s

Thousands of years ago, people celebrated special times.

New plants and animals in the spring, the longest day of
summer, good food from the trees and fields in the autumn
– these were all times to celebrate. Later, Christianity
came, and old and new festivals came together as Easter,
Christmas, and other celebrations.

Each season brings its own celebrations. Spring has

eggs at Easter; in summer there are outside festivals at
the summer solstice, and barbecues for the Fourth of
July; autumn has fires and fireworks; and winter has the
wonderful traditions of Christmas food and presents.
But there are new celebrations too – Mother’s Day,
Remembrance Day, the special days of new countries,
and the festivals that people bring with them when they
move to different countries.

Here is a year of celebrations – old and new, inside and

outside – in Britain, the USA, and other English-speaking
countries. Learn about the traditions, read the stories
– you can even cook the pancakes if you want!
Seasons n Celebrations P- C M Y K
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OX F ORD BOO K WOR M S LIBRARY

Factfiles

Seasons and Celebrations

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Factfiles Series Editor: Christine Lindop

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 This book is dedicated
to my wonderful husband Steve,
to my dear family and friends,
and to sufferers and survivors of breast cancer
everywhere around the world.
May you always have something to celebrate.

Jackie Maguire 1959-2007

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Seasons and
Celebrations

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 1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of
Seasons and Celebrations is available on audio CD. isbn 978 0 19 423384 2
Printed in Hong Kong
Seasons n Celebrations P-vi C M Y K

Word count (main text): 6508

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The publishers would like to thank the following for their permission to reproduce images:
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Cover image by Alamy Images / Eyebyte

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 contents

introduction i

1 Festivals old and new 1

2 The year begins 2
3 National days 7
4 Lent and Easter 12
5 Families and fools 16
6 Summer celebrations 20
7 Fires and fireworks 24
8 Remembering 28
9 Thanksgiving 30
10 In a new country 33
11 Christmas 36

glossary 41
activities : Before Reading 44
activities : While Reading 45
activities : After Reading 48
about the author 52
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about the bookworms library 53

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1 Festivals old and new

The people of Britain have had festivals for thousands

of years. Long ago the sun, the moon, the wind, rain,
animals, and trees were all important in their religions,
and they had festivals for them. When Christianity came
to Britain, people wanted to keep some of their old
festivals so they brought the religions together. Saint
Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas are all
old festivals that became Christian festivals.
Food, family, and flowers are an important part of most
celebrations. Most people have a big family dinner at
Christmas, and many people get together at Thanksgiving
too. A lot of people give chocolate and other sweets as
presents on Valentine’s Day and at Easter and Christmas,
and some festivals have special food. Restaurants are very
busy on Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, and flower
shops sell a lot of flowers on those days.
People today often live far away from their families, so
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they send cards at special times like Mother’s Day, Easter

and Christmas. The cards say things like: ‘Thinking of
you across the miles’. Post offices and telephones are very
busy too, and many people use their phones and computers
to send messages.
Times change, and festivals also change. People have
celebrated many of these festivals for hundreds of years,
and will go on finding new ways to enjoy them.

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2 The year begins

New Year’s Eve is on 31 December, the last day before

the New Year begins. In many places, people go to parties
or restaurants with friends in the evening. Sometimes
they meet outside: in New York, thousands of people go
to Times Square; in Sydney they go down near the sea;
in London, they go to Trafalgar Square. Just before
midnight, people look at the clock, and together they
count the last ten seconds before the New Year begins:
‘Ten, nine, eight . . . ’
At midnight they stand in a circle, hold hands and sing
an old song called Auld Lang Syne. A Scottish man called
Robert Burns wrote the words of this song about two
hundred years ago. The song says that it is good to
remember your old friends. Then many people drink a
glass of champagne, light some fireworks, or dance until
the sun comes up.
In Scotland, New Year’s Eve has a special name:
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Hogmanay. At Hogmanay, there is a tradition called

first-footing. The first person to come into the house in
the New Year is the ‘first-foot’: if he is a tall man with
dark hair, he will bring good luck to the house. He must
carry some food, some money, or a piece of black coal for
the fire.
In Edinburgh and other Scottish cities, there are house
parties and street parties, Scottish music and dancing,

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 The year begins 
Fireworks on
Hogmanay in
Edinburgh

Seasons n Celebrations P- C M Y K

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parades and lots of fireworks. Sometimes the parties go

on all night and into the next day.
New Year’s Day, 1 January, is a holiday for most people,
and the banks and many shops do not open. Many people
stay at home and rest on that day. And a lot of people

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  Seasons and Celebrations
January sales
make a New Year’s resolution. This means that they
decide to do something different because they want to be
a better person. For example, they say: ‘I’m going to stop
smoking,’ or ‘I’m going to eat better,’ or ‘I’m going to
learn something new.’
After the holiday the shops are very busy with January
sales. At sale time things in the shops are cheaper –
sometimes much cheaper – so it is a good time to go
shopping. And when people do go out, they usually say
‘Happy New Year!’ when they see friends and family for
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the first time in January.
A few weeks later it is Valentine’s Day. This started
more than two thousand years ago, as a winter festival,
on 15 February. On that day, people asked their gods to
give them good fruit and vegetables, and strong animals.
When the Christians came to Britain, they came with a
story about a man called Saint Valentine. The story is
that Valentine was a Christian who lived in Rome in the
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third century. The Roman Emperor at
the time, Claudius the Second, was not a
Christian. Claudius thought that married
soldiers did not make good soldiers, so
he told his soldiers that they must not
marry. Valentine worked for the church,
and one day he helped a soldier who
wanted to marry. The Emperor said that
Valentine had to die because of this, and
he sent Valentine to prison. But Valentine
fell in love with the daughter of a man
who worked there. Just before he died,
he sent a note to this woman, and at the end of the note,
he wrote: ‘Your Valentine.’ He died on 14 February, so
the date of the festival changed from 15 to 14 February
and the name changed to Saint Valentine’s Day.
In the early nineteenth century people started to give
Valentine’s cards to the
person they loved on 14
February. The cards had
pictures of birds and
flowers on them – perhaps
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red roses, the flower of
love – and inside there
were words like these:
Roses are red, my love,
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet, my love,
But not as sweet as you.
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  Seasons and Celebrations

Choosing roses for Valentine’s Day

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People still send each other Valentine’s cards, but often

they do not write their names inside: they just write ‘Be
my Valentine,’ or ‘From your Valentine’.
Some children give their friends or teachers cards or
chocolates. A man will perhaps give red roses to the
woman that he loves. A lot of people go out to restaurants
for the evening and have dinner for two, and some people
think it is a good day to marry.

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 FA CT F I L E S
Seasons and
Celebrations Seasons and

Seasons and celebrations  Jackie Maguire

In English-speaking countries around
the world people celebrate Easter,
Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and other
Celebrations
special days. Some celebrations are
new, like Remembrance Day and Mother’s Day; others, like Jac kie M aguire
the summer solstice, go back thousands of years.

What happens on these special days? What do people eat,

where do they go, what do they do? Why is there a special
day for eating pancakes? Who is the ‘guy’ that children take
onto the streets in November? And where do many people
like to spend the shortest night of the year in England?
Come on a journey through a year of celebrations, from
New Year’s Eve to Christmas.  (Word count 6,508)

f
FACTFILES

For apps, e-books,

audio downloads, and
free resources go to
www.oup.com/elt/gradedreaders

700 Headwords 2 2 2
Cover image courtesy of Eyebyte/Alamy Images
4 BOOKWORMS

4 BOOKWORMS

1
4

www.oup.com/elt

FactFilEs seasons (5mmsPinE) output_r.indd 1 #706008 ( O.U.P) OBE Factfiles 2: 30/11/12 16:24:07