White Sunday

In Samoa, White Sunday is a special holiday that is highly anticipated all year long by the children because on White Sunday, it is the children who are in charge of the church services.

Date: 12 October 2008
Time: All day
Location: Samoa
Cost: Free

The attire for the day is  "white" formal attire. If you arrive at the church early enough, you can observe everybody arriving - a sea of white.

The women will  wear white dresses with a white hat, often decorated with lace and veils. The men will wear their white traditional attire of a formal "ie", which is a decorative or  floral padeo or lava lava.
On top they wear a  coat jacket, white shirt, and tie that completes the male dress code for the day.

Children also only wear white.

Following the church service, is a feast, called a to'ona'i. On normal Sundays the adults would eat first, and the children afterward, but on White Sunday the roles are reversed. On White Sunday, the children are seated prominently and the adults serve them.


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