Festivals and celebrations
The days a community stops, gathers and celebrates.
Festivals and celebrations are the days when a community stops its work, dresses up, eats together and makes noise. They may mark a season, a saint, a victory or just the pleasure of being together. From Carnival and Holi to Songkran and Oktoberfest, they show a place at its most generous and expressive. Many have religious roots, others are civic or seasonal, and a good number began as local fairs and grew famous. This page lists them by country, month and meaning, with notes on food, costume and music.
What makes a festival
Most festivals share a few features: a set date, a procession or gathering, special food, music and dance, a costume or colour, and an element of play. Some invert the usual order, letting servants command and the young tease the old, as at Carnival and Purim. Others are solemn, with lamps, silence or fasting. Whatever the tone, a festival gives people a shared memory, and the preparations, from cooking to costume making, are part of the pleasure.
Local and global
A festival that began in one village may now draw millions, and migrants carry festivals to new countries, where they take on new forms. Diwali is celebrated in London and Singapore, St Patrick's Day in Buenos Aires and Tokyo, Lunar New Year in Sydney and New York. At the same time, many small local festivals survive, and EveryParampara records these too, because a village fair is as much a part of the world's heritage as a great carnival.
Written by the EveryParampara desk with AI assistance. Background on Festivals and celebrations (kind of tradition). Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
🇺🇸 United StatesFestivus
A secular December observance marked by bare poles, voiced grievances, and wrestlingFestival · Dinner
🇨🇳 Suzhou, China and 4 moreDongzhi Festival冬至
A winter solstice festival of family reunions, ancestor rites and sweet rice ballsSeasonal · Dinner
🇩🇪 Germany and 5 moreSaint Sylvester's Day
A Christian feast day and year-end celebration marked across Europe and beyondSeasonal · Dinner
🇩🇿 Tlemcen, AlgeriaAshura in Algeriaيوم عاشوراء
A day of fasting, almsgiving, evening feasting and regional folk masquerades.Festival · Fasting and breaking the fast
🇧🇧 Oistins, BarbadosOistins Fish Festival
An annual Easter celebration in Oistins, Barbados, honoring the local fishing community with food and folk games.Festival · Dinner
🇷🇸 Serbia and 5 moreĐurđevdanЂурђевдан
A spring festival and feast of Saint George kept across the Balkans and Eastern EuropeFestival · Feasts and festival meals
🇭🇷 CroatiaBadnjakBadnji dan
A Christmas Eve oak log burned in the hearth across Croatia to welcome the holiday.Festival · Fasting and breaking the fast
🇬🇷 Greece and 1 moreTsiknopemptiΤσικνοπέμπτη
A Greek Carnival feast of grilled meats held on the second to last Thursday before Lent.Festival · Dinner
🇨🇦 Canada and 1 moreStag and doe
A Canadian fundraising party for an engaged couple, featuring games, food, and raffles to help pay for the wedding.Festival · Dinner
🇮🇱 Jerusalem, Israel and 1 moreHoshana Rabbahהוֹשַׁעְנָא רַבָּה
The seventh and final day of Sukkot, marked by seven synagogue processions and night-long study.Festival · Dinner
🇮🇸 IcelandIcelandic weddings
A blend of church rites and long feasts, where guests sit by family lines and gifts are saved for the morning.Rite of passage · Dinner
🇺🇸 Manhattan, United StatesJews and Thanksgiving
An American national holiday kept by most US Jews, and debated by their rabbisFestival · Dinner
🇧🇹 Punakha, BhutanTraditional Day of OfferingBuelwa Phuewi Nyim
A Bhutanese New Year marked by offerings to Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal and family feasts.Festival · Breakfast
🇮🇸 IcelandChristmas in IcelandJól
A winter festival of mountain folklore, family feasts and thirteen mischievous visitorsFestival · Dinner
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Dongzhi Festival: Alpha, CC BY-SA 2.0, source
- Đurđevdan: Anonymous Russian icon painter (before 1917) Public domain image (acco, Public domain, source
- Hoshana Rabbah: Unknown author, Public domain, source
- Jews and Thanksgiving: Executive Committee of Congregation Shearith Israel., Public domain, source
- Christmas in Iceland: Bryan Ledgard, CC BY 2.0, source
- Ashura in Algeria: Jan Janssonius, Public domain, source
- Festivus: en:User:DRosenbach Original uploader was DRosenbach at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Saint Sylvester's Day: Unknown medieval artist in Rome, Public domain, source
- Badnjak: Vidonjac, CC BY 2.0, source
- Tsiknopempti: C messier, CC BY-SA 4.0, source