From Valentine's Day to Easter and Passover to The Summer Solstice to Samhain and the Autumn Equinox to Christmas and the Birth of a New Year. And everything in between most people have good memories of holidays past and here on paralore is a perfect place to share them.
 February 14 became the date for exchanging love messages and St. Valentine became the patron saint of lovers. The date was marked by sending poems and simple gifts such as flowers and candy.
 Easter, the Sunday of the resurrection, Pascha, or Resurrection Day, is the most important religious feast of the Christian year observed at some point between late March and late April each year (early April to early May in Eastern Christianity), following the cycle of the moon. It celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, which Christians believe occurred on the third day of his death by crucifixion. Easter also refers to the season of the church year, called Eastertide or the Easter Season.
 Passover is celebrated on the 14th day of the month called Nissan first month of the Jewish year. It immediately precedes the Festival of Unleavened Bread, a Jewish holiday which begins on the 15th day of Nissan and is celebrated in the northern spring season. Passover commemorates the Exodus and freedom of the Israelites from ancient Egypt. As described in the Book of Exodus, Passover marks the "birth" of the Children of Israel who become the Jewish nation, as the Jews' ancestors were freed from being slaves of Pharaoh and allowed to become followers of God instead.
 Also called Harvest Home, the Feast of the Ingathering, Thanksgiving, or simply Autumn Equinox, this holiday is a ritual of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth and a recognition of the need to share them to secure the blessings of the Goddess and God during the winter months
 Halloween originated with the ancient Celtic celebration of Samhain which occurred on October 31. This celebration goes back more than 2000 years. It marked the beginning of the cold and barren part of the year and was associated with death and the spirits of the dead. The dead were believed to walk the earth on this night so bonfires were lit and animal skins donned for protection. The Catholic church later co-opted this religious event and renamed it All Hallows Eve since it was on the the eve of Allhallows Day (All Saints' Day).
 The first Thanksgiving feast was very much tied to the Pilgrim's first successful harvest. The origins of many modern world holidays go back to special times — like harvest time — during the annual cycle of the calendar. Planting and harvest times took on particular importance to early agricultural societies that depended on their crops for survival. They would mark the changing seasons with a feast or festival.
 Christmas is for joy, for giving and sharing, for laughter, for coming together with family and friends, for tinsel and brightly decorated packages... But mostly, Christmas is for love. It was this love for which Jesus came to this world and sacrificed his life.
Thus Christmas is a celebration of love and mirth symbolized by the Nativity, the Santa, the poinsettia and the evergreens. All that bring home the spirit of love and life. And this is the spirit that makes Christmas so popular throughout the world.
 New Years.
People have celebrated the passage of time since ancient days. There are as many ways to celebrate the New Year as there are days in the calendar. Regardless of when and where it is observed, the holiday is rich in history and traditions the world over. The common themes of renewal, rebirth, and hope for health, wealth, and prosperity evident in past celebrations are still alive and well in today's festivities The time of year when pagans rang out the old and rang in the new varied considerably. Early Romans welcomed the new year in March -- the time of the spring equinox -- as did the ancient Babylonians. The flooding of the Nile, which usually occurred in June, marked the beginning of the new year for ancient Egyptians, who would sing, dance, and feast for a month to welcome the waters that would nourish the crops and bring life to the otherwise dry desert. Thousands of years ago, the people of Israel observed their first New Year in autumn. Still celebrated in the fall, Rosh Hashanah, reckoned by the lunar calendar, begins 10 days of penitence and prayer that end with Yom Kippur, the most solemn of religious days in the Jewish calendar. The Chinese New Year usually occurs in late January or February, also a function of the lunar calendar. We owe the secular custom of celebrating New Year's Day on January 1 to Julius Caesar, who, as emperor in the first century B.C., devised the Julian calendar. The month of January itself was named in honor of Janus, the two-faced Roman god who looked backward to the old year and forward to the new. It became customary for Romans to hold a festival each year in his honor and to exchange gifts and wishes of good luck. Under Constantine, the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity, New Year's evolved into a day of fasting rather than feasting. Early Christians believed the day was best spent repenting the wrongdoings of the previous year and making resolutions to lead better lives in the coming year. Today the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics regard January 1 as a holy day honoring Mary, the Mother of God.
Please join this club and share your stories and traditons with other members. We would love to hear about them!
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