Portal:Holidays

Introduction

A holiday is a day or other period of time set aside for festivals or recreation. Public holidays are set by public authorities and vary by state or region. Religious holidays are set by religious organisations for their members and are often also observed as public holidays in religious majority countries. Some religious holidays, such as Christmas, have become secularised by part or all of those who observe them. In addition to secularisation, many holidays have become commercialised due to the growth of industry.

Holidays can be thematic, celebrating or commemorating particular groups, events, or ideas, or non-thematic, days of rest that do not have any particular meaning. In Commonwealth English, the term can refer to any period of rest from work, such as vacations or school holidays. In American English, the holidays typically refers to the period from Thanksgiving to New Year's, which contains many important holidays in American culture. (Full article...)

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Christmas Day or Christmas falls on December 25. It is preceded by Christmas Eve on December 24, and in some countries is followed by Boxing Day on December 26. Some Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas on January 7. An annual holiday that marks the traditional birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth, Christmas combines the celebration of Jesus' birth with various other traditions and customs, many of which were influenced by winter festivals such as Yule and Saturnalia. Christmas traditions include the display of Nativity scenes and Christmas trees, the exchange of gifts and cards, and the arrival of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

Christmas is celebrated in most countries around the world, owing to the spread of Christianity and Western culture, along with the enduring popularity of wintertime celebrations. Various local and regional Christmas traditions are still practiced, despite the widespread influence of American and British Christmas motifs disseminated by film, popular literature, television, and other media.

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In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of erotic love. He is equated with the Greek god Eros, and another one of his Latin names Amor. In popular culture Cupid is frequently shown shooting his bow to inspire romantic love, often as an icon of Valentine's Day. The most common representations of cupid include a chubby baby with wings and a bow and arrow. Sometimes the arrow has a heart for its tip. Cupid is most often seen nude or diapered. Cupid is sometimes blindfolded, symbolising the figure of speech, "love is blind."

Things you can do

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Check Category:Holidays articles needing attention
Cleanup : see Holiday Cleanup List
Expand : List of included articles, Place the {{WikiProject Holidays}} banner on all article talk pages that fall within the scope of this project, Add them to the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Holidays/Articles
Infobox : Make a Holiday Infobox for each article
Stubs : Review Category:Holiday stubs, Review stubs and add {{Holiday-stub}} to holiday articles
Update : Holidays in the upcoming Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries
Wikify : Check to see if title follows standardized format, Add the Holiday portal template to the See also section of each article, Add appropriate subcategory classification and remove unnecessary super categories to allow for an efficient category tree
Other : Template_talk:Infobox_holiday#Things_to_do; assess all the unassessed articles; review the automatically generated worklist; review recent changes for inclusion in the project