Customs & Celebrations

Chinese New Year and Vietnamese Tết follow lunisolar calendars that coordinate lunar months with the solar year.

Holi covers celebrants in colored powder to mark the arrival of spring in Hindu tradition.

Songkran marks the Thai new year and is celebrated nationwide with playful water fights.

American Thanksgiving traces its origins to a 1621 harvest celebration shared at Plymouth Colony.

Chuseok brings Korean families together to honor ancestors and share a traditional harvest meal.

Nowruz greets the spring equinox as the start of the Persian new year across Iran and Central Asia.

Diwali lights lamps across India and the Hindu diaspora to mark light's victory over darkness.

Carnival's parades and costumes traditionally mark the days before the start of the Christian season of Lent.

A bar or bat mitzvah marks a Jewish child's religious coming of age around the age of twelve or thirteen.

Mexican families build ofrendas, decorated altars, to honor deceased loved ones during the Day of the Dead.

Oktoberfest began in 1810 as a celebration of a royal Bavarian wedding and grew into the world's largest beer festival.

Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple with the lighting of a nine-branched menorah.

Ramadan's month of daytime fasting closes with the festival of Eid al-Fitr.

The Mid-Autumn Festival gathers families under the full moon to share traditional mooncakes.

St. Patrick's Day honors Ireland's patron saint and is traditionally marked by wearing green.

Bastille Day commemorates the 1789 storming of the Bastille that helped ignite the French Revolution.

Cinco de Mayo marks the Mexican army's 1862 victory at the Battle of Puebla.

Kwanzaa was created in 1966 and organizes its week-long celebration around seven core principles.

Vesak marks three milestones in the Buddha's life: his birth, enlightenment, and passing.

The Japanese tea ceremony turns preparing and serving tea into a ritual built on harmony and respect.

A quinceañera celebrates a girl's fifteenth birthday across Latin America as a rite of passage.

Mehndi decorates a bride's hands and feet with henna designs ahead of South Asian weddings.

Afternoon tea is often credited to the 19th-century Duchess of Bedford, who wanted a light meal between lunch and dinner.

The siesta tradition sets aside the hottest afternoon hours in Spain and parts of Latin America for rest.

The hongi greets another person by pressing noses and foreheads together in Māori tradition.

The haka, once performed before battle, is now most widely known as a pre-match ritual in rugby.

Raising a toast to honor someone is a custom believed to trace back to ancient Greek and Roman banquets.

Omiyage is a Japanese custom of bringing local specialty souvenirs home to share with coworkers and family.

Pamplona's Sanfermines festival each July includes the famous running of the bulls in honor of the city's patron saint.

La Tomatina fills the streets of Buñol with a massive tomato fight each last Wednesday of August.

Burning Man builds a temporary desert community that closes each year by burning a large wooden effigy.

New Orleans marks Mardi Gras with parades, thrown beads, and the tradition of King Cake before Lent begins.

Loy Krathong sends small floating baskets down Thailand's rivers and canals as an act of release and thanks.

Cebu's Sinulog Festival honors the Santo Niño with colorful street dancing and parades.

Naadam celebrates Mongolia's traditional sports of wrestling, horse racing, and archery.

Up Helly Aa closes the Shetland Islands' Yule season with the ceremonial burning of a replica Viking longship.

The whirling ritual of Sufi dervishes turns spinning movement into a form of meditative worship.