Eritrea : public and bank holidays, closure of banks, stock exchanges, school vacations

Secular holiday :

cards/flowers :

School holidays :

School holidays :

Orthodox : The bright red colored egg is the symbol of Easter (or Pascha) The eggs are colored on Holy Thursday after the Divine Liturgy. The Easter bread is taken to church on Saturday evening when a special sequence of services takes place: Midnight Office... After the service the clergy blesses the breads and eggs brought by the people and they take them home. The eggs are cracked after the midnight service and during the next days. One egg is cracked on the wall of the church (and this is the first egg eaten The ritual of cracking the eggs takes place before the Easter lunch. Each person selects his/her egg. Then people take turns tapping their egg against the eggs of others, and the person who ends up with the last unbroken egg is believed to have a year of May only be observed by the local Orthodox community.

Orthodox : Paid holiday

Muslim, Sufi :

Secular holiday : Chicago, Saturday May 1st, 1886: 350,000 workers go on strike to call for an 8-hour working day. Industries are paralyzed nationwide. On Monday, as demonstrations go on, the police open fire. On Tuesday, Chicago is again on strike. Following a bomb launched against them, the police shoot again. 12 dead, of which 7 policemen. 8 anarchists will be condemned and executed. In 1889, the Socialist International Movement met in Paris and declared this day international workers' day . The Soviets will follow suit, just as the Nazis. In France, under the Vichy regime (1940-1944), the celebration is renamed Labour Day .

cards/flowers : Mother’s day has evolved in many countries in different ways. This is because mother’s day has different origins in different countries and therefore occurs on different days in the year. One school of thought claims that this day emerged from the custom of mother worship in ancient Greece. Mother worship which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of gods, and Rhea, the wife of Cronus, was held on March 15 to March 18 around Asia Minor. They insist that this custom spread around the world. Mothering Sunday is the celebration of motherhood in the United Kingdom. It is also known as Mid-lent Sunday, Rose Sunday and Laetare Sunday. It originally comes from the Victorian practice of allowing servants to return home to visit their mothers on this day. In the United States, Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1819 - October 17, 1910) was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet. Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862 and quickly became one of the most popular songs for the Union during the American Civil War. After the war she focused her activities on the causes of Pacifism and women’s suffrage. In 1870 she was the first to proclaim Mother’s Day, with her Mother’s Day Proclamation. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson approved Mother’s Day in 1914

Secular holiday : When Emperor Haile Selassie unilaterally dissolved the Eritrean parliament and annexed the country in 1962, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) waged an armed struggle for independence. The ensuing Eritrean War for Independence went on for 30 years against successive Ethiopian governments until 1991, when the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), a successor of the ELF, defeated the Ethiopian forces in Eritrea and helped a coalition of Ethiopian rebel forces take control of the Ethiopian Capital Addis Ababa. Following a referendum Eritrea declared its independence and gained international recognition in 1993.

School holidays :

cards/flowers :

Secular holiday : Since independence in 1991, the June 20 has been declared national holiday in tribute to all those who paid the ultimate price in the 30-year war to reclaim national independence as well as to those who lost their life in the previous war against Abyssinia.

Muslim, Sufi :

Secular holiday : On 1 September 1961, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), under the leadership of Hamid Idris Awate, waged an armed struggle for independence Paid holiday when falling on Saturday or Sunday [Wikipedia]

School holidays :

Coptic :

Muslim, Sufi : Birthday of the Prophet, Mohammed. For nine days there are Parties with fairs, feasting, and parades. Stories are told about how the mountains danced when Mohammed was born, and sang, There is no god but Allah. The trees answered, And Mohammed is his Prophet.

Rastafarian : Observance of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, according to the Julian Calendar