As banks were closed, all people had a day off

asks his frend " where did you bugit?"

A. Special family days
B. The right to choose
C. National spirit traced in different celebrations
D. They invent local holidays
E. Love for celebrations
F. One common event for a national holiday
1. People in every culture celebrate holidays. Although the word «holiday» literally means «holy day,» most American holidays are not religious, but commemorative in nature and origin. As. the nation is blessed with rich ethnic heritage, it is possible to trace some of the American holidays to diverse cultural sources and traditions, but all holidays have taken on a distinctively American flavor.
2. Each of the 50 states has the right to observe Federal holidays according to their legislation. However, the majority of the states usually choose the date or day celebrated by the rest of the nation. Still the closing of local government offices and businesses on these holidays vary. For instance, in Washington State there are five official holidays when people have five days off; however, a company may give their employees three extra days per year to enhance their holiday term.
3. One of the most widely celebrated and popular holidays in the USA is Independence Day. What is rather remarkable about it is the splendid colorful parade. Take, for instance, a parade in Seattle, Washington. Different organizations take part in it. First, usually comes the fire brigades in full dress, with polished fire-engines. Girls throw flowers to them. The firemen and women are regarded as heroes, especially in small towns. Then come the police and other state organizations, fund raisers, voluntary bodies, factories, and small businesses proudly showing off their produce.
4. It is worth mentioning that in the United States, Americans like holidays very much. The word «holiday» for them is synonymous with «celebration». They tend to make some Sundays unique by organizing various festivals and carnivals. On these Sundays you can go to different towns and take part in entertaining events. The main attractions are festivals that welcome in the autumn as the leaves on the trees begin to turn red, orange, and yellow. For example, a festival of wooden boats or classical automobiles, or a wood-chopping contest and an auction are popular activities.
5. As for family celebrations in the USA, it is worth saying that these holidays are mostly calm and quiet. The most popular family holidays are Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. The extended families gather for these two events. Americans prepare only traditional meals for these holidays. For instance, for Thanksgiving Day there will be a roast turkey with cranberry sauce, white mashed potatoes (which ARE indispensable with turkey). Other sweet potatoes or yams, vegetables and a pumpkin pie.

breakfast?_____________________________

-go to school?______________________________

-finish school?______________________________

-have supper?______________________________

-do your homework?_________________________

When?

-were you born?_____________________________

-begin to read?______________________________

-were your holidays?__________________________

-have a day off?______________________________

-watch TV?__________________________________

-have breakfast?______________________________

a means of getting to the pantomime, Zoological Gardens and Madame Tussauds. They were just ordinary suburban children, and they lived with their father and mother in an ordinary red-brick-fronted villa, with coloured glass in the front door, a tiled passage that was called a hall, a bathroom with not and cold water, electric bells, French windows, a good deal of white paint, and every modern convenience, as the estate agents say. There were three of them. Roberta was the eldest. Of course, mothers never have favourites, but if their mother had had a favourite, it might have been Roberta. Next came Peter, who wished to be an engineer when he grew up; and the youngest was Phyllis, who meant extremely well.

Mother did not spend all her time paying dull calls to dull ladies, and sitting dully at home waiting for dull ladies to pay calls to her. She was almost always there, ready to play with the children, and read to them, and help them to do their home lessons. Besides this, she used to write stories for them while they were at school, and read them aloud after tea, and she always made up funny pieces of poetry for their birthdays and for other great occasions, such as the refurnishing of the doll's house, or the time when they were getting over the mumps.

These three lucky children always had everything they needed: pretty clothes, a lovely nursery with heaps of toys and a Mother Goose wallpaper. They had a kind and merry nursemaid, and a dog who was called James, and who was their very own. They also had a father who was just perfect - never cross, never unjust, and always ready for a game - at least, if at any time he was not ready, he always had an excellent reason for it, and explained the reason to the children so interestingly and funnily that they felt sure he had to do it.

You will think that they ought to have been very happy. And so they were, but they did not know how happy till the pretty life in the Red Villa was over and done with, and they had to live a very different life indeed.

The dreadful change came quite suddenly.

Peter had a birthday - his tenth. Among his presents was a model engine more perfect than you could ever have dreamed of. The other presents were full of charm, but the engine was fuller of charm than any of the others were.

Its charm lasted in its full perfection for exactly three days. Then, owing either to Peter's inexperience or Phyllis's good intention, or to some other cause, the engine suddenly went off with a bang. James was so fightened that he went out and did not come back all day. All the Noah's Ark people who were in the tender were broken to bits, but nothing else was hurt except the poor little engine and the feelings of Peter. The others said he cried over it- but of course boys of ten do not cry, however terrible the tragedies may be which darken their lot. He said that his eyes were red because he had a cold. This turned out to be true, though Peter did not know it was when he said it, the next day he had to go to bed and stay there.

спасибо!



When I was four months old, my mother died. I had no brothers or sisters. So all my boyhood, from the age of four months, there were just two of us, my father and me. We lived in an old gypsy caravan. My father owned the filling station and the caravan, that was about all he owned in the world. It was a very small filling station on a small country road with fields and woody hills around it.
While I was still a baby, my father washed me and fed me, pushed me in my pram to the doctor and did all the millions of other things a mother normally does for her child. That is not an easy task for a man, especially when he has to earn his living at the same time.
But my father was a cheerful man. I thinks that he gave me all the live he had felt for my mother when she was alive. We were very close. During my early years, I never had a moments unhappiness, and here I am on my fifth birthday.
I was a little boy as you can see, with dirt and oil all over me, but that was because I spent all day in the workshop helping my father with the cars. The workshop was stone building. My father built that himself with loving care. We are engineers, you and I, he said to me. We earn our living by repairing engines and we can’t do good work in a bad workshop. It was a fine workshop, big enough to take one car comfortably.
The caravan was our house and our home. My father said it was at least one hundred and fifty years old. Many gipsy children, he said, he been born in it and had grown up within its wooden walls. Different people had knocked at its doors, different people had lived in it. But now its best years were over. There was only one room in the caravan, and it wasn’t much bigger than a modern bathroom.
Although we had electric lights in the workshop, we were not allowed to have them in the caravan as it was dangerous. So we got our heat and light in the same way as the gypsies had done years ago. There was a wood-burning stove that kept us warm in winter and there were candles in candlesticks. I think that the stew cooked by my father is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. One plate was never enough.
For furniture, we had two narrow beds, two chairs and a small table covered with a tablecloth and some bowls, plates, cups, forks and spoons on it. Those were all the home comforts we had. They were all we needed.
I really lived living in that gypsy caravan. I lived the evenings when I was in my bed and my father was telling stories. I was happy because I was sure that when I went to sleep my father would still be there, very close to me, sitting in his chair by the fire.
My father, without any doubt, was the most wonderful and exciting father any boy ever had. Here is a picture of him.
You may think, if you don’t know him well, that he was a serous man. He wasn’t. He was actually full of fun. What made him look so serious and sometimes sad was the fact that he nevr smiled with his mouth. He did it all with his eyes. He had bright blue eyes and when he thought of something funny, you could see a golden light dancing in the middle of each eye. But the mouth never moved. My father was not what you would call an educated man. I doubt he had read many books in his life. But he was an excellent storyteller. He promised to make up a bedtime story for me every time I asked him. He always kept his promise. The best stories were turned into serials and went on many nights running.