White Sunday in Samoa and Tonga

White Sunday celebrates childhood through the hosting of special programs during church services including Biblical story reenactments, recitations and dance performances. On this day, many children are allowed privileges including being served first during meal time. It is also celebrated in American Samoa, Tokelau and Tonga.

Some say it is a Christian adaptation of an indigenous pre-colonial-contact celebration of certain planting and harvesting seasons. Others say the holiday coincides with a family celebration that became widespread in the 1920s in commemoration of Samoans who succumbed to the influenza epidemic of 1918.