Hanukkah concludes this evening. For more information on Hanukkah, click here.
Check out our display: “Holidays & Holy Days”
Hanukkah
Category: Holidays & Observances
Winter Solstice and Yule
Winter begins in the northern hemisphere on this, the shortest day of the year. In traditional pagan cultures, this time of the year represented darkness giving way to light, and death giving way to life. The dark and cold had reached its nadir. Henceforth the days would grow longer and warmer. Hope was restored. Many of the festivals and celebrations that take place at this time of year, from many different cultures, follow this theme.
For more on this and other winter observances and feasts, check out our display: Holidays and Holy Days.
It’s A Wonderful Life
Festivus
“I’ve got a lot of problems with you people!”
With heart warming traditions such as the “Airing of Grievances” and “Feats of Strength,” Festivus is a holiday which owes its popularity to the sitcom “Seinfeld.” For more on this secular anti-celebration, click here.
Hanukkah
Jews in Canada and around the world celebrate Hanukkah starting at sundown tonight. The Festival of Lights is a celebration of God’s deliverance and provision. The event began in remembrance of Maccabean revolt in the 2nd Century BCE, when the Hebrews recaptured the Temple in Jerusalem, the spiritual centre of Judaism. Each candle of the Menorah is lit, one per day for the 8 day Festival. Like all Jewish Holy Days, which follow the lunar Hebrew Calendar, the dates of Hanukkah vary on the Gregorian Calendar, and can occur anytime from late November to late December. This year Hanukkah will conclude on the evening of December 24. For more information on Hanukkah, check out some of the following:
Check out our display: “Holidays & Holy Days”
Las Posadas
This 9 day festival is central to Navidad (Christmas) celebrations in Mexico. This is a neighbourhood festival that commemorates the journey of Mary and Joseph, who could not find posadas, (Spanish for “lodging”) before the birth of Jesus. A procession, including people dressed as Angels, Saints and the Holy Family, marches through the neighbourhood, knocking on doors looking for a place to stay. Like Mary and Joseph, they are refused, until finally the parade ends at one home where they are welcomed in. Feasting ensues, including a pinata for the children.
Be sure to check out our display, “Holidays & Holy Days.”
Christmas Reading Rewards
Ask your classroom teachers about Christmas Reading Rewards! Special treats await those students who have shown that they have bought into doing SSR each day at LTSS.
![IMG_0109[1]](https://tweedsmuirlibrary.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/img_01091.jpg)
Bodhi Day
The religion known as Buddhism dates back to the 6th or 5th Century BCE, when the Indian Prince Siddhartha Gautama became the “Buddha,” literally, “the Enlightened One.” The followers of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism observes Bodhi Day in celebration of the day that the Buddha sat below the Bodhi Tree and meditated on the meaning of life. Bodhi Day is celebrated mainly by the Buddhists of northern and eastern Asia (in Japan the day is known as Rohatsu) and in countries to which those people have immigrated (such as Canada). For more on Bodhi Day and the life of the Buddha, click here.
St. Nicholas Day
Tomorrow you can celebrate the REAL Santa Claus.
If people tell you that Santa Claus isn’t real, tell them to think again! Saint Nicholas lived in the 3rd and 4th Centuries AD(CE). He lived in what is now known as Turkey, but what was then a Greek area of the Roman Empire. The legends surrounding his life grew and evolved over the years, eventually leading to our modern picture of Santa.
In much of Europe and in many parts of the world, St. Nicholas Day is celebrated on December 6, or on another date other than Christmas. For more information, check out the St. Nicholas Centre.
Advent
The Holiday Season in the western world has traditionally been synonymous with Advent, literally the period of expectation of an important arrival. For Christians the season of Advent is about the anticipation of Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Christ. In the Christian Church, on each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, candles are lit as symbols of Advent.
Be sure to check out our display of books for “Holidays and Holy Days!”
Jersey Day!
Celebrate the power of sport by wearing a jersey, sweater or uniform of one of your favourite teams today. It is National Jersey Day in Canada, a chance to show off your team colours and recognize the powerful role that sports plays in our lives. Sports bring us joy and escape. We learn so much about life from sports. Sport clearly impacts our physical health, but our mental, emotional and spiritual health also benefit. 
Holidays and Holy Days
American Thanksgiving marks the unofficial start to the “Holiday Season” in the United States and in Canada. As the days become shorter and weather gets worse, we prepare for many weeks of festivals, parties and celebrations. Some of these are religious in nature while many are secular. It is a month of Holidays and Holy Days.
Come down to the school library to join us as we celebrate this wonderful time of the year. Check out our displays related to Christmas and the many other holidays of the winter including Kwanzaa, Yule, Hanukkah, New Year and more. And come back here to see more online as we celebrate “Holidays and Holy Days.”
Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School Library 