December 12 - National Festival of Lights and Renewal in Saint Lucia

Posted on December 12, 2018

St. Lucia's Day is tomorrow, December 13. Because of this, December 13 is celebrated by Saint Lucia island as its National Day.

But tonight is a sort of "National Day Eve," and since St. Lucia is considered the saint of light, the capital city of Castries is lit up with decorative lights, decorated lanterns, and fireworks!

In the past, the celebration would last ALL night long, until sunrise of December 13!

Nowadays, maybe partly to attract more tourists, the festivals of lights tend to be spread out over a couple of weeks. One day there is a competition for decorated lanterns, with many different categories for age and theme. There are parades and performances as well as fireworks shows. 

Also, these days, many people merge this holiday with Christmas, so their house decorations combine lights with Christmas themes.

Here are some examples of lanterns: 

 By the way, Saint Lucia is located in the Caribbean Sea, so people living there are not going to have a "white Christmas." Unless you mean white sands!

Also on this date:

Anniversary of Pennsylvania's statehood 

Jamhuri Day in Kenya

Anniversary of a woman becoming (sorta kinda) a rabbi

Gingerbread House Day

Anniversary of the first trans-Atlantic radio transmission

National Poinsettia Day

Anniversary of the opening of the first motel

Anniversary of paper artist Yulia Brodskaya winning a contest

Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest pages on:

• December holidays 
• December birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in December

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• January holidays 
• January birthdays 
• Historical anniversaries in January

October 26, 2011 - Diwali

This Hindu festival is popularly known as the “festival of lights.” Small clay lamps filled with oil are lit to represent the triumph of good over evil. Also, people celebrating Diwali wear new clothes and share sweets and snacks with friends and family.

Some people have fireworks shows and burst firecrackers. Others make beautiful electrical light displays on their houses or hang colorful paper lanterns. A decoration that doesn't involve light is rangoli, designs made on floors or courtyards from colored powder (colored rice, flour, or sand can be used).

Did you know....?

One of the nations that sets aside Diwali as an official holiday is India. Did you know that there is one city, Sivakasi, located in the state of Tamil Nadu, that produces 90% of the fireworks in the entire country? There are more than 8,000 fireworks factories in this one city, including the world's largest firework-manufacturing unit!

(Sivakasi is also the home of the safety match industry—factories in this city manufacture 80% of the nation's safety matches. Finally, the city is big in the printing industry, with calendar art and colorful posters being printed on many offset printing presses.)

How do fireworks work?

Here is a video that shows the components and hand-built creation of a large-scale firework. 

PyroUniverse offers diagrams to help you understand how fireworks work. 

NOTE: the components of fireworks are very dangerous to use, and it is incredibly dangerous to try to make fireworks yourself!!!

December 6, 2010

St. Nicholas Day

This Christian festival for children is held in many different European countries and, in some regions, is more important than Christmas. It is a day when children wake up to presents—often left in their shoes or boots, which they put out with carrots for St. Nicholas's horse the night before. This holiday is especially important in Germany and the Netherlands, but it is also celebrated in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Aruba, Monaco, and other places.

Also...

Night 6 of Hanukah

This “Festival of Lights” is an eight-day Jewish celebration characterized by gift-giving, lighting candles on a 9-branched menorah, and other customs. A children's game is played with a top called a dreidel, potato pancakes called latkes are fried and eaten, and special songs are sung.

Many families celebrate holidays from more than one religious tradition. For example, today my family celebrated an early Christmas with my daughter's family, who can't be around on the 25^th and we celebrated Hanukah. We played dreidel, lit the candles while singing the traditional prayer, made and ate latkes—and we enjoyed Christmas lights and a decorated tree and ate roast beef and veggies-sauteed-with-bacon. I'm glad that our diverse family calls for twice the traditions and pretty much twice the fun!

December 11, 2009

First night of Hanukkah (Chanukah)

This evening begins the eight-day Jewish holiday sometimes called the “Festival of Lights.”

Because it is near Christmas, this relatively minor holiday has become more important in the U.S. and some other places in the world; it celebrates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the 2nd Century BCE Maccabean Revolt. Jewish families celebrating Hannukkah light candles in a menorah: one candle the first night, two the second night, and so forth until the last night, when eight candles are lit.

The candles are lit with an extra candle called a shamash, so menorahs always have nine candleholders. Some people use oil lamps instead of candelabra.

Gifts are often exchanged during each night of Hanukkah; also, there are special games and songs.


Here is a menorah to color.

Here are several cute coloring pages. Note that the shamash is often the center candle on a menorah, and it's usually taller than the others.

Play dreidel, which is a Hanukkah top game. Here is a dreidel pattern, and here are the directions for the game.




There are lots of Hanukkah crafts and printable games (scroll down for the latter) here and many other places on the Internet!

Also on this day, in 1882, Max Born was born.

This German-born physicist and mathematician helped to figure out quantum physics. He won a Nobel prize for his work. He was a very good teacher, and his PhD student and six of his assistants went on to win Nobel prizes of their own!

What is quantum physics? It's a mathematical description of the structure and behavior of atomic and subatomic particles and radiation.

Even though some of the things we have figured out about the very-very-very-very-very-very small doesn't make sense to us, quantum theory has been shown to be incredibly accurate in a huge number of different sorts of experiments.

Here's an example of something that doesn't seem to make sense: an electron seems to behave like a teeny-tiny particle of matter AND like a wave of radiation.

At the same time!

And electrons behave differently when we watch them. Even though they are just teensy little particles with no eyes or brains, they seem to “know” when we are watching!

Here is an animated Google video that shows this particular weirdness in more detail.

This is just one example of stuff that doesn't seem like it could be true, but is. There are lots of other strange-seeming facts about the world of the incredibly small. Read about them here.

Physicist Niels Bohr said, "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."