Holiday

Then the king held a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his officials and servants. He proclaimed a tax holiday in the provinces and gave gifts worthy of the king’s bounty.

This is why the rural Jews, who live in the villages, observe the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day of joy and feasting. It is a holiday for sending gifts to one another.

…as the days on which the Jews gained rest from their enemies and the month in which their sorrow turned to joy and their mourning into a holiday. He wrote that these were to be days of feasting and joy, of sending gifts to one another and to the poor.