Holiday.

Going on holiday and travelling in the target country is a great way to provide opportunities to practise your language skills. You can use the target language from the moment you arrive at the airport until the time you leave. When planning your trip make sure that you can do some of the following in the target language...more

American holidays:
In the United States, there are ten federal holidays set by law. Four are set by date (New Year's Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day, and Christmas Day). The other six are set by a day of the week and month: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, and Thanksgiving. All but the last are celebrated on Mondays to create three-day weekends for federal employees. All Jewish and Islamic holidays begin at sundown the day before they are listed here...more

Canadian civic holiday:

Who and when started the civic holiday?
It is holiday about work and about people.
In Canada Civic Holiday is in most cases the first Monday of August unless another civil or provincial holiday exists on a different date, in which case the local holiday is used. Civic holiday in Canada is statutory holiday observed in all provincess across.
Civic Holiday in Canada is not statutory holiday. A bill has been attempted to be passed in the house of commons but it has always been unsuccessful. If an employer wants you to work, it is a work day.Howevere, the intent of the Civic Holiday is to "not work". So please don´t work on Civic Holiday! In Canada Civic Holiday is in most cases the first Monday of August unless another civil or provincial holiday exists on a different date, in which case the local holiday is used.
How can you tell people not to work on a Civic Holiday? It is up to an employer whether someone works it or not. It is not up to an employee to decide. And yes, it is differnet than a stat holiday, which is a government legislated holiday. Working one entitles an employee to holiday pay but a Civic Holiday does not.
Many people work on Civic and Statutory holidays , good thing if your house is on fire, you need to go to the hospital or really really just have to order pizza! My only complaint about Canadian holidays is that we have Victoria Day! Name one person in Canada who cares about Victoria! I say, keep the holiday, but have it in honour of something more meaningful...anything more meaningful...even "National Pizza Day"!! I´d say more I have to go...I seem to have developed a sudden craving to order Pizza!
I realize that whether or not you work on the Civic Holiday is up to the employer, but i have to complain, because my employer has decided, out of nowhere, to make us come in on that day, even though in the past we never did. that sucks. i agree that the idea of the Civic holiday is to ´not work´. many people have planned weekend getaways for that weekend.
For the civic holiday to honor work and people, why do they make us work? The point of the holiday is to NOT to work and celebrate the day off. What a hypocrytical holiday. And what about the people that want to earn time and half, they always forget the little guys...
It is in honour of Queen Victoria of Britian in which we(canada) was a colony of under her control. Then John A. Macdonald came with the Confederation and began to make Canada independant piece by piece. Now we are independant but are very much inpart with Britian and the queen in which you will find her crown on many of our symbols. One is very obvious, if you havn´t noticed, on the king highway signs there is a picture of the crown on top. They are dedicated to the funds the King of Britian gave to Canada for those roads.

Click here to celebrate the holidays by learning to say "Merry Christmas" around the world.