Germans Love David Hasselhoff/Real Life/Holidays: Difference between revisions

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* St. Patrick's Day in Ireland is a boisterous but religious holiday. Irish-Americans, however, turned it into a celebration of their unique immigrant culture. The first St Patrick's Day parade was in [[New York City]] in ''1762'', while the first in Ireland was in Dublin in 1931. Over the years it's become, like Cinco de Mayo, an excuse to throw a theme party and drink a lot. In England, St. Patrick's Day is also far more widely celebrated in England than St. George's Day, though mostly as an excuse for drinking. This can be largely attributed to the Guinness Corporation.
* St. Patrick's Day in Ireland is a boisterous but religious holiday. Irish-Americans, however, turned it into a celebration of their unique immigrant culture. The first St Patrick's Day parade was in [[New York City]] in ''1762'', while the first in Ireland was in Dublin in 1931. Over the years it's become, like Cinco de Mayo, an excuse to throw a theme party and drink a lot. In England, St. Patrick's Day is also far more widely celebrated in England than St. George's Day, though mostly as an excuse for drinking. This can be largely attributed to the Guinness Corporation.
* [[All Hallow's Eve|Halloween]] is more popular in the US, despite its Irish origins as ''Oíche Shamhna'', the ancient New Year's Day; the bridging of the boundary between years is mirrored by the weakening of the gap between the world of the living and that of the dead. Bonfire is a calque of the Irish ''tine cnámh'', "bone fire". Americans turned it into a secular holiday about playful scares, costumes and candy. The new holiday has spread throughout countries such as Germany, Austria, and even back into Ireland, where the new style has largely replaced the old.
* [[All Hallow's Eve|Halloween]] is more popular in the US, despite its Irish origins as ''Oíche Shamhna'', the ancient New Year's Day; the bridging of the boundary between years is mirrored by the weakening of the gap between the world of the living and that of the dead. Bonfire is a calque of the Irish ''tine cnámh'', "bone fire". Americans turned it into a secular holiday about playful scares, costumes and candy. The new holiday has spread throughout countries such as Germany, Austria, and even back into Ireland, where the new style has largely replaced the old.
** It's a double example in that the holiday is one of the many pagan holidays [[Hijacked By Jesus]] to help converts adjust to the new religion. All Hallow's Eve is the evening before All Saint's Day, was a minor prelude to the much larger celebration the next day, and was actually completely forgotten among Christians for years before some Americans decided to revive it and the modern version was born.
** It's a double example in that the holiday is one of the many pagan holidays [[Hijacked by Jesus]] to help converts adjust to the new religion. All Hallow's Eve is the evening before All Saint's Day, was a minor prelude to the much larger celebration the next day, and was actually completely forgotten among Christians for years before some Americans decided to revive it and the modern version was born.
* Chanukah is more popular, proportionately, among Jews in the West than in Israel or elsewhere. Being the least important and most recently ordained holiday on the Jewish calendar, in Israel (where most of the population is Jewish and a significant number are Orthodox), it tends to be overshadowed by more serious holidays like Passover and Sukkot. American Jews, however, elevated the importance of Chanukah to compare with Christmas, so that they too could enjoy a "Holiday Season" with their Gentile neighbors. Jewish parents added the custom of gift-giving so their children would not feel left out (although there was an old tradition of giving money, or ''gelt'', at Chanukah among Ashkenazi Jews, it apparently just isn't the same).
* Chanukah is more popular, proportionately, among Jews in the West than in Israel or elsewhere. Being the least important and most recently ordained holiday on the Jewish calendar, in Israel (where most of the population is Jewish and a significant number are Orthodox), it tends to be overshadowed by more serious holidays like Passover and Sukkot. American Jews, however, elevated the importance of Chanukah to compare with Christmas, so that they too could enjoy a "Holiday Season" with their Gentile neighbors. Jewish parents added the custom of gift-giving so their children would not feel left out (although there was an old tradition of giving money, or ''gelt'', at Chanukah among Ashkenazi Jews, it apparently just isn't the same).
** In modern Israel, Chanukah has gained some importance... as a nationalistic holiday celebrating [[Badass Israeli|Jewish military prowess]], which is what the holiday ''originally'' meant.
** In modern Israel, Chanukah has gained some importance... as a nationalistic holiday celebrating [[Badass Israeli|Jewish military prowess]], which is what the holiday ''originally'' meant.