A
festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a
community and centering on some characteristic aspect of that community and its
religion or
traditions, often marked as a local or national
holiday,
mela or
eid. Next to religion and
folklore, a significant origin is
agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with
harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in
autumn, such as
Halloween in the northern hemisphere and
Easter in the southern.