III.

Monologue: Holidays, celebrations

1. What public holidays are there in Hungary?
2. What family celebrations can you mention?
3. What do we celebrate at Christmas? How do we celebrate it?
4. What differences are there between the Hungarian and the English celebration of
Christmas?
5. What do we celebrate at Easter? How do people celebrate it?
6. What public holidays are there in England?
7. What public holidays are there in the USA?

1. Public holidays are when people don't have to go to work. Public holidays are called bank
holidays in England as the banks are closed on these days. These are the following in
Hungary:
New Year's Day (on the first of January), the day of the Hungarian revolution (on the 15th of
March), Easter Monday, May Day (first of May), Whitsun, the day of Saint Stephen’s (the
twentieth of August), All Saints' Day (the first of November), the day of the Declaration of
the Hungarian Republic (the 23rd of October), first and second day of Christmas
2. We have some other celebrations in my family, for instance birthdays, namedays, Mother's
Day, wedding anniversaries, Christenings.

3. At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The most important day is the 24th of
December which is called Christmas Eve or Holy Night. It is usually quiet and peaceful. My
family gathers together around the Christmas tree which is decorated with sweets, brightly
coloured lights and girlands, ornaments. We open up our presents and then sit at the dining
table and have a big dinner. The traditional dishes are fish soup, stuffed cabbage, roast turkey,
poppy seed and nut rolls. At midnight we go to the church for the midnight service. On
Christmas Day and Boxing Day (26 th) relatives visit each other and have lunch together/ we
go to my grandparents’.
4. There are only a few differences between the Hungarian and the English Christmas. In
England children put their stockings near the fireplace. Father Christmas comes down the
chimney and put sweets into them. People leave some biscuits and brandy for Father
Christmas. Children get up early on the 25th of December and open up their presents. It's
called Christmas Day and unlike in Hungary, it is the most important day in England. The
traditional British Christmas dinner consists of roast turkey, vegetables followed by a
Christmas pudding. At the start of the meal most people pull Christmas crackers.
5. At Easter we celebrate the Resurrection that is the rising of Jesus Christ. It is a religious
holiday. Religious people don't eat meat until Good Friday, before Easter. On Easter Sunday
morning we eat ham with hard-boiled eggs, boys visit their relatives and friends and sprinkle
women and girls with water or perfume. They get chocolate or painted eggs and chocolate
bunnies and/ or money.
In England children roll eggs down hills/ parents hide eggs, and children must find them on
/parents organize egg hunts on Easter Monday.
6. Public holidays in England are called bank holidays because on these days the banks are
closed. In Britain special holidays are: The may Bank Holiday (the first Monday of May),
Valentine’s Day,
the Queen's Birthday,
Halloween,
Guy Fawkes’ Night and
Remembrance Day. (Then people remember those who were killed in the two world wars)
7. In the USA the special celebrations are the following:
- Memorial Day: when people remember soldiers killed in wars
- Independence Day on the 4th of July. On that day in 1776 the United States gained its
independence.
- Halloween: when people dress up in scary costumes (ghosts, witches) and children collect
chocolates from the neighbours saying “trick or treat”
- Thanksgiving Day: the fourth Thursday in November, people remember how God and the
Native Americans saved them from starvation in the seventeenth century.