<P> White Sunday is a national holiday in Samoa falling on the second Sunday of October, with the Monday following a public holiday . It is a day for parents and communities to acknowledge and celebrate childhood by hosting special programs during church services which include scriptural recitations, biblical story reenactments, and creative dance performances . Children receive gifts (often new clothing and / or school supplies) on White Sunday and are allowed privileges normally reserved for elders, such as being the first to be served food at family meal time . </P> <P> On White Sunday, Samoan women and children dress completely in white clothing . Some of them trim the clothes with the other two colors of the Samoan flag, red and blue . Men will wear white shirts with either white slacks or the traditional' i.e. faitaga form of the lavalava . If a lavalava is worn it need not be white . White Sunday is also celebrated in Tonga . </P> <P> In the Samoan language the holiday is called "Lotu Tamaiti," literally "Children's Service" or "Prayer for Children ." </P> <P> There are differing opinions in regards to the origin of this holiday . Some believe White Sunday to be a Christian adaptation of an indigenous pre-contact celebration of certain planting and harvesting seasons . Others assert that the holiday coincides with a family celebration that became widespread in the 1920s in commemoration of Samoans who succumbed to the influenza epidemic of 1919; this epidemic, introduced through the ambivalence of the New Zealand colonial administration, took the lives of 1 / 5 to 1 / 4 of the Samoan population, many of them children . White Sunday is a time to also get with brothers, sisters and even cousins to recite something together . It is a tradition in all the Protestant churches...</P>

How to say happy white sunday in samoa