Holiday

A holiday is a day set aside by custom or by law on which normal activities, especially business or work, are suspended or reduced. Generally, holidays are intended to allow individuals to celebrate or commemorate an event or tradition of cultural or religious significance. Holidays may be designated by governments, religious institutions, or other groups or organizations. The degree to which normal activities are reduced by a holiday may depend on local laws, customs, the type of job being held or even personal choices.

The concept of holidays has most often originated in connection with religious observances. The intention of a holiday was typically to allow individuals to tend to religious duties associated with important dates on the calendar. In most modern societies, however, holidays serve as much of a recreational function as any other weekend days or activities.

In many societies there are important distinctions between holidays designated by governments and holidays designated by religious institutions. For example, in many predominantly Christian nations, government-designed holidays may center on Christian holidays, though non-Christians may instead observe religious holidays associated with their faith. In some cases, a holiday may only be nominally observed. For example, many Jews in the Americas and Europe treat the relatively minor Jewish holiday of Hanukkah as a "working holiday", changing very little of their daily routines for this day.

Christmas and holiday season

The Christmas season, or festive season, (also called the holiday season or simply the holidays, mainly in the U.S. and Canada), is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and Western-influenced countries that is generally considered to run from late November to early January, defined as incorporating at least Christmas, and usually New Year, and sometimes various other holidays and festivals. It incorporates a period of shopping which comprises a peak season for the retail sector (the "Christmas (or holiday) shopping season"), and a period of sales at the end of the season (the "January sales"). Christmas window displays and Christmas tree lighting ceremonies when trees decorated with ornaments and light bulbs are illuminated, are traditions in many areas.

Originally within the Roman Catholic Church, the term "Christmas season" was considered synonymous with Christmastide, a term associated with Yuletide, which runs from December 25 (Christmas Day) to January 6 (Epiphany), popularly known as the 12 Days of Christmas. However, as the economic impact involving the anticipatory lead-up to Christmas Day grew in America and Europe into the 19th and 20th centuries, the term "Christmas season" began to become synonymous instead with the traditional Christian Advent season, the period observed in Western Christianity from the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day until Christmas Day itself. The term "Advent calendar" survives in secular Western parlance as a term referring to a countdown to Christmas Day from the beginning of December.

Lo Bosworth

Lauren Ogilvie "Lo" Bosworth (born September 29, 1986) is an American television personality, author, and entrepreneur. Born and raised in Laguna Beach, California, she attended Laguna Beach High School as a teenager. In 2004, she rose to prominence after being cast in the reality television series Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, which documented the lives of her and her friends.

After moving to Los Angeles in 2007, Bosworth developed a supporting position in its spin-off The Hills during its second season, which chronicled the personal and professional life of her friends Lauren Conrad, Heidi Montag, Audrina Patridge, and Whitney Port. In 2010, the series underwent several casting adjustments, and saw Bosworth become a primary cast member, joining Montag, Patridge, Kristin Cavallari, and Stephanie Pratt. In 2011, she released her first book The Lo Down. In 2013, Bosworth co-founded the party supply company Revelry House.

Bosworth attended the University of California, Santa Barbara before transferring and graduating from UCLA, where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and majored in Art History.