holiday

 The holiday season is upon the 4th grade class at Lafayette Regional School and in our community. The holiday season starts with Thanksgiving and ends on New Year’s Day. Throughout this time, we have many traditions that range from eating turkey on Thanksgiving, picking out Christmas trees, and watching the ball drop in New York City. We would like to hear from our friends around the world about their traditions and celebrations during holiday season in their community. Please send us photos, video clips, songs, or stories about your holiday season. Our class will gather all this information on our wiki page, so we can all learn together. You may send information by: Posting a comment on [|our blog] Emailing us gferguson@lafayetteregional.org

From Japan:

In Japan, most festivals come from the religious traditions of Buddhism and Shintoism. Obon, one of the two biggest Japanese holidays, is an occasion for family reunion: people believe that departed souls visit this world then, and it is a tradition that family members hold a service together to welcome and see off their ancestors' souls. Although people take off from work (and schools are in summer break) on this day (Aug. 15), it is not a national holiday. Indeed, many national holidays commemorate very abstract ideas (Greenery Day, Marine Day, etc.); so, most people do not know how to celebrate them except taking off from school and work. During the week called the Golden Week, they have several national holidays and take the whole week off. The other biggest festival, the New Year, is a national holiday in the middle of winter break. They celebrate it by visiting temples and shrines, as well as enjoying various seasonal foods: for the first couple days of the year, they typically eat `osechi' (literally meaning `seasonal'), which is prepared in a large amount so that homemakers can take some days totally off. I'm afraid this may be too long, as well as that it may sound like I'm too much obsessed with taking off from school. At any rate, I hope this is of some help for your grandson. Best, Kohei