Erntedankfest (Harvest celebration)

The Erntedankfest (literally: harvest-thanks-celebration) is celebrated in various different types all over the world. In Germany, the probably most known is the Oktoberfest in Bavaria. The festival happens at the end of summer, in genral at the end of September or early October. It is culturally viewed a very important celebration, so let me tell you a bit about it in my village. So, it goes on for three days, always over a weekend. Friday, everything gets put into place and build, like our bowling lane, which is on the complete main road at the centre of our village. Saturday is the day where really just the villagers celebrate. All women and kids bowl on Saturday - even I won once in the women section. Nobody takes it too seriously. Music is on in the evening and everybody drinks (alcohol is (sadly) a big part of the whole thing) and chatters. This is the day where everything fun happens. On Sunday, in the morning, there is a mass at the church. Otherwise, the men bowl, everybody is welcome, so families from nerby villages come too. The bowling takes place from 11 am - 7 pm, and I and two others always take shifts to set up the scored cones and roll the ball back. Its a very good workout. I seldom feel my legs so much as the day after. Since everyone was partying the night before, sundays are much more focused on tradition. For example do we always have a performance of wind musicians in the afternoon. Also: every family bakes a cake and in the morning the women make boxes with different sorts of pies. This gets sold in the afternoon as well as coffee for a nice Kaffee-und-Kuchen (coffee and cake; an afternoon snack basically). In the evening, the winner of the bowling for men (funny name: Hammelkegeln - a Hammel is a mutton but ofc can alo be seen as a synonym for men in general and kegeln is just bowling). The first price was for a long time an actual mutton - thats the reason for the name, but since it was really cruel for the animal since not evry winner has time and place for it, you now just get a voucher for the meat of a mutton. Funny story: A man of our village won so many times in the age of actual mutton prizes that he now has a flock of muttons! They always graze on the hills around the village. It is a cultural experience and I find it wonderful that we still have such an celebration.I always love the Erntedankfest and I hope you've now got an idea how it goes in my little village. I wish you everything good in the world!!