Portal:Holidays

Introduction

A holiday is a day or other period of time set aside for festivals or recreation. Public holidays are set by public authorities and vary by state or region. Religious holidays are set by religious organisations for their members and are often also observed as public holidays in religious majority countries. Some religious holidays, such as Christmas, have become secularised by part or all of those who observe them. In addition to secularisation, many holidays have become commercialised due to the growth of industry.

Holidays can be thematic, celebrating or commemorating particular groups, events, or ideas, or non-thematic, days of rest that do not have any particular meaning. In Commonwealth English, the term can refer to any period of rest from work, such as vacations or school holidays. In American English, "the holidays" typically refers to the period from Thanksgiving to New Year's (late November to January 1), which contains many important holidays in American culture. (Full article...)

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Saint Patrick's Day, colloquially Paddy's Day, is the feast day which annually celebrates Saint Patrick (386-493), the patron saint of Ireland, on March 17. It is a national holiday in the Republic of Ireland, the overseas territory of Montserrat, and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated worldwide by Irish people and increasingly by many of non-Irish descent. Celebrations are generally themed around all things green and Irish; both Christians and non-Christians celebrate the secular version of the holiday by wearing green, eating Irish food and imbibing Irish drink, and attending parades. The St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin, Ireland is part of a five day festival, with over 500,000 people attending the 2006 parade. The largest St. Patrick's Day parade is held in New York City and it is watched by 2 million spectators. The St. Patrick's Day parade was first held in New York City on 17 March 1766 when Irish soldiers marched through the city. As well as being a celebration of Irish culture, Saint Patrick's Day is a Christian festival celebrated in the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland and some other denominations. The day always falls in the season of Lent.

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"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is a popular Christmas story about Santa Claus' ninth and lead reindeer who possesses an unusually red colored nose that gives off its own light that is powerful enough to illuminate the team's path through inclement weather. The story is owned by St. Nicholas Music Inc. and has been sold in numerous forms including a popular song, a television special, and a feature film. Rudolph was created by Robert L. May in 1939 as part of his employment with Montgomery Ward.

Rudolph is an extension of Santa's reindeer which pull his sleigh and help him deliver Christmas gifts. The names of the original eight reindeer are taken from the 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, which led to the popularity of reindeer as Christmas symbols.

Things you can do

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Check Category:Holidays articles needing attention
Cleanup : see Holiday Cleanup List
Expand : List of included articles, Place the {{WikiProject Holidays}} banner on all article talk pages that fall within the scope of this project, Add them to the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Holidays/Articles
Infobox : Make a Holiday Infobox for each article
Stubs : Review Category:Holiday stubs, Review stubs and add {{Holiday-stub}} to holiday articles
Update : Holidays in the upcoming Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries
Wikify : Check to see if title follows standardized format, Add the Holiday portal template to the See also section of each article, Add appropriate subcategory classification and remove unnecessary super categories to allow for an efficient category tree
Other : Template_talk:Infobox_holiday#Things_to_do; assess all the unassessed articles; review the automatically generated worklist; review recent changes for inclusion in the project

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Credit: Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base website, User:Aiden
The United States Declaration of Independence.

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“

My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?

”

— Bob Hope