Новый год и рождество в разных странах Британские острова Италия Чехия Австралия Россия Китай Япония.

INTRODUCTION New Year is a good family holiday, one of the oldest in the world. First it was celebrated about 4 thousand years ago in Babylon. Ancient Romans considered March to be the first month of a year, because field works at this time began. Celebrating began on March, 23 by a modern calendar, and was lasting for 11 days. A year consisted of 10 months, then number of months increased by two. In 46 AD the Roman emperor July Caesar transferred the beginning of a year for January, 1. The Julian calendar named after the emperor, was distributed across all the Europe [2:78-84]. The custom to light up fur-tree fires came from ancient times from Germany and England. During those old times people gathered in a winter wood around an evergreen fur-tree, lit up fires near it, sang, danced and had fun [5:56]. New Year is the most mysterious holiday, taking us to the mysterious world of kind fairy tales and magic. The aim of the paper is to learn about New Year and Christmas in different countries, on different continents. The tasks are to learn about: – holidays’ dates, – names of main holidays’ magicians, – main customs, traditions and ways of celebration, – traditional holidays’ meal.

INTRODUCTION 3 1. New Year and Christmas in Great Britain 4 2. New Year and Christmas in Italy 4 3. New Year and Christmas in the Czech Republic 5 4. New Year and Christmas in Russia 7 5. New Year and Christmas in Japan 8 6. New Year and Christmas in China 10 7. New Year and Christmas in Australia 12 CONCLUSION 14 BIBLIOGRAPHY 15

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