Here below listed are the important aspects about Unit Nine..

1.A Traditional Holiday—The First Halloween

The history of Halloween dates back as far as two-thousand years with the Celtic festival of Samhain (sow-in). It was a joyful harvest celebration that also symbolized the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one, and commemorating the dead. November 1st was considered the beginning of the long, dark, cold months to come. It was believed that there was a strong association between the worlds of the living and of the dead for the remainder of the year. To the Celtic people, the boundaries between these two significant worlds became unclear, and on the day of October 31st, the ghosts of the dead assembled back on earth. These spirits had powerful influence on predictions about the upcoming dark winter. For this elaborate celebration, the Celts dressed in costume, usually animal heads and skins. They built bonfires and spent the night attempting to tell fortunes, damaging crops, and causing trouble. This ceremony continued long into the night, and as the festival was ending, a special sacrificial fire would be lit. This fire symbolized asking to be led safely into the coming season.

2.Christmas

1)The origin of Christmas

The first recorded Christmas celebration was in Rome in 336. Christmas played a role in the Arian controversy of the fourth century. In the early Middle Ages, it was overshadowed by Epiphany. The feast regained prominence after 800, when Charlemagne was crowned emperor on Christmas Day. Associating it with drunkenness and other misbehavior, the Puritans banned Christmas in the 17th century. It was restored as a legal holiday in 1660, but remained disreputable. In the early 19th century, Christmas was revived with the start of the Oxford Movement in the Anglican Church. Charles Dickens and other writers reinvented the holiday by emphasizing Christmas as a time for family, religion, gift-giving, and social reconciliation as opposed to the revelry that had been common historically.

2)Christmas Tree

A Christmas tree is a decorated tree, usually an evergreen conifer such as spruce, pine, or fir or an artificial tree of similar appearance, associated with the celebration of Christmas. The modern Christmas tree was developed in medieval Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia)and early modern Germany, where Protestant Germans brought decorated trees into their homes. It acquired popularity beyond the Lutheran areas of Germany and theBaltic countries during the second half of the 19th century, at first among the upper classes.

3)Santa Claus

Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts to the homes of well-behaved ("good" or "nice")children on Christmas Eve (24 December)and the early morning hours of Christmas Day (25 December). The modern Santa Claus grew out of traditions surrounding the historical Saint Nicholas (a fourth-century Greek bishop and gift-giver of Myra), the British figure of Father Christmas and the Dutch figure of Sinterklaas (himself also based on Saint Nicholas). Some maintain Santa Claus also absorbed elements of the Germanic god Wodan, who was associated with the pagan midwinter event of Yule and led the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession through the sky.