The Great Day of Celebration

Cultural Significance

The Great Day of Celebration is a weekly event that is celebrated on a Thursday. It is celebrated on this day as it is then one day until the weekend. It is believed that if you celebrate Thursday, Friday will not be drawn out enabling the weekend to come sooner. If the annual event falls on a Thursday, such as Christmas, then that Thursday is not regarded to be a Great Day of Celebration. For November 5th, if it were to fall on a Thursday, popping candy sweets are given out to share in peoples homes. Instead of the usual entertainments at the arena and the street entertainments. The arena is used for a fireworks display and therefore the arena is not used for safety reasons. It is common, on these days to buy hot drinks in local cafes to drink while watching the fireworks display.

Customs And How It’s Celebrated

The Great Day of Celebration is to celebrate that the weekend is one day away. It is considered a normal work and school day. So these will still be open. The Great Day of Celebration is first observed by people wishing others a "Happy Great Day of Celebration". They say it family members, friends, work colleagues, teachers, etc. This may also be a farewell from shopkeepers and customers. Apart from this, the day goes on like any normal day. In some workplaces, they may have something extra baked goods. In the evening people have different evening meals compared to the rest of the week. This comprises of pasta. If meat is included then it will be venison. After the evening meal the table is set from eating to board games. This can be something children will enjoy to include them, such as Sixes: The Dice Game. However, if they are not present, then games like Carcassonne and Spice Road depending on the player numbers. The board game will differ as the game pieces will be made from copper and not cardboard. This is to bring up the time to 7 pm. Citizens are welcome to but not forced to go to the Arena in Zone 1. Once there, they are given bread rolls, that was created by bakers. This was paid by tax sovereigns previously collected. This bread differs from week to week, to make the receiving of it more exciting. From that point, they have two options depending on how early they arrived in the Zone. They can go to the Arena for entertainments if they are early as there is limited seating. If they prefer or they are late, they can see the street entertainers around the circumference of the Arena as well as around Zone 1.

The Entertainments

The Arena

The Arena is situated in the centre of Zone 1 and is only open to the public on Thursdays. Sitting for the event starts at 18:45, once the Arena is full or it is 19:00 the Arena no longer allows admittance. The show begins with fire dancers and jugglers that excite the crowd for the biggest event, the gladiator fights. With wooden sticks, the size of a short sword, and shields. They wear two gambesons ^[1] to protect themselves from blunt trauma. They duel before the cheering crowd. The Contact Entertainments must look real but do no damage despite their implements. Doing excessive harm like breaking bones for entertainment is considered culturally abhorrent. The entertainments end at 8 pm, families or couples with older children may leave the Arena to go home to put the kids to bed. Other people, however, are welcome to stay in Zone 1 to enjoy the street entertainments.

Street Entertainment

These entertainments start at 18:30 and can last well into the night, these entertainments are those of contact jugglers ^[3], bubble magician^[4], musicians ^[5], magicians, jugglers ^[6] and living statues ^[7]. These entertainments will have a place to donate as you would any other busker. These are generally in the plazas and around the circumference of the Arena, but not in the gardens of the Zone.

The Original Story

The original story behind the Great Day of Celebration is that back in 2018, people recognised that honouring Wednesdays as hump day while useful for morale, was not useful for the perception of time. It was noted also that honouring Friday as the last working day of the week made the day last longer which was the opposite of the desired effect. Honouring Thursday became something that took elements from both days and built upon that. As it would make Friday shorter. Along with the fact that both the UK and the US had terror attacks topped with threats from overseas in 2017, the people of Britain required a weekly event to come together and try and distract themselves. In later decades this became a celebration that the working week is soon to be over and for some, it was time to spend together and celebrate.

Original Customs And How It’s Celebrated

It was celebrated at workplaces and at home but at first not widely as soon as the practice was spoken about it was openly observed. In those who observed the trend, some brought baked goods to workplaces, while some didn’t. While others didn’t wish others a Great Day of Celebration. The idea of going to the Arena was not fully observed due to location and cost due to wages and the idea of how those wages should be spent to enjoying oneself or one’s family. Some families celebrated by playing board games while others chose to celebrate by having tea ceremonies while others did neither or both. Eventually, it became popular among counties and spread to other countries. During this, the celebration went through two codifications before, what is expected in the cities of today.

Is There Anything Different

Three main things have changed the idea of going to an Arena or stadium became more widespread. At the time of its start, free bread was not given and items were bought at the Concessions Stands. Secondly, street entertainers were not openly practising on Thursdays as part of the celebrations. The third main difference is that tea ceremonies fell out of practice with those who were not elderly as well as the transportation of the tea to begin with.

Related Location
Zone 1