U.S.A+California+Laguna+Niguel



Let's start with MY favorite celebration...**HALLOWEEN**! [|Check out the origins of Halloween here!] At St. Anne School, our annual Halloween parade is a tradition that has endured since our school first opened. media type="youtube" key="iW8d1SI9X9g" height="315" width="420" align="center"

Our next big celebration is **THANKSGIVING**, which is celebrated primarily in the U.S. and Canada. Other countries have what they call as a "Thanksgiving Day", but it is very different from that of America's, which is celebrated in the on the fourth Thursday in November. It has officially been an annual tradition since 1863, when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens", to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26. The event that Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in 1621. The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days, and was attended by 53 Pilgrims and 90 Native Americans. The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings"—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.



Next, almost 4 million Jews in the United States celebrate **Chanukah** (also spelled Hannukah or Hanukkah), known as the "festival of Lights", it commemorates the purification and rededication of the Temple by Judas Maccabeus on Kislev 25, 165 BC (usually in December). When the Greeks entered the Temple Sanctuary, they contaminated all the oil. When the Hasmoneans defeated them, they searched and found only one cruse of oil bearing the High Priest's seal. This cruse had enough oil of only one day's burning, but a miracle came to pass and it lasted eight days. The following year, these days were declared a holiday to be celebrated with the saying of Hallel and thanksgiving prayers (Megillat Taanit). This is the reason they light one additional candle each night on their candelabrum (known as a //menorah//).

Here is a song by artist Matthew Miller, known by his Hebrew stage name, Matisyahu (**Gift of God**). media type="file" key="13-matisyahu-king_without_a_crown.mp3" width="240" height="20"

Toward the end of the year, we get closer to one of MY favorite celebrations...**MY BIRTHDAY (**I was born on December)! Birthdays have been celebrated all over the world for thousands of years and are a day of family, fun, and frivolity.

As we finish out the twelfth month, December, many people celebrate a holiday that has both secular and non-secular meaning - **CHRISTMAS.** From a non-secular perspective, Christmas (from the word's "Christ's Mass") is the celebration of the 'birth' of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. From a secular standpoint, Christmas is a time of giving and good will toward humanity, which pays tribute to the deeds of St. Nicholas, originally known by his Dutch names - Sint Nikolaas or Sinterklaas. The Santa Claus we know today in the United States was brought to life through the poem  [|A Visit From St. Nicholas (a.k.a. 'Twas The Night Before Christmas)]. If you want to learn more about Santa AND play some fun games and complete cool activities [|CLICK HERE!]