festivity vs gala

festivity

noun
  • A festival or similar celebration. 

  • An experience or expression of celebratory feeling, merriment, gaiety. 

gala

noun
  • A showy and festive party. 

  • A competition 

  • Pomp, show, or festivity. 

  • A member of an androgynous class of priests of the Sumerian goddess Inanna. 

adj
  • Celebratory; festive. 

How often have the words festivity and gala occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )