Global Holidays and Celebrations

[Lenny]

Who is this "we"?

Should I replace it for "americans", "citizens of u.s" or something else?

I'm assuming (from the little I know) that it's meaning "citizens of certain states of the U.S.A.".

But still good point - quite a large portion of users here do not originate from the U.S.A. (myself included), and know very little about it, so try not to assume that they do! Clarification is a wonderful thing and to be used frequently.

[Headfinder]

Vikings are much cooler than dubiously Italian Spanish guys that name their ships after chip brands.

The Saint Mary, the Girl and the Pint? Those are a brand of chips?

On topic: Vikings arrived to America, but they didn't make it widely known to the rest of Europe, nor changed the course of history when they found it. Celebrating the vikings instead of Columbus would be on par with celebrating Mayan's day because they were there even before the vikings first arrived (And we'd still have to go back to prehistoric ages to the first humans to set foot on America, but I don't know what those are called...)

Then again, I've never heard of Guttenberg's day, despite his invention and the subsequent print revolution. Whatever is celebrated depends on what meaning it has to the society which celebrates it, I guess. What's more important to you? And most people?

(Not that an event being important for a society is the only motivation to keep celebrating that event, of course)

[Sunflower]

The General Discussion Thread recently covered two related topics:

1) Traditional winter holidays (Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, St. Lucia Day, etc.) and how we various forumites celebrate them.  Traditions, favorite dishes, evocative smells such as pine boughs (or surf and BBQ smoke, for our Australian members), etc. 

Also, Minna's birthday is in early January, so let's start planning!  I expect a demonstration of support to rival May Day in Moscow.  A parade of giant Danish military vehicles rolling down the streets of Malmö and a band playing "Everything Is Awesome!" arranged for cello, kantele, guitar, and kazoo would be a good start.

2) A "Secret Santa" gift exchange among willing participants.

This would be a virtual version of what many workplace teams, schools, or large families do: put the participants' names in a bag, then randomly (and secretly) assign each name to another participant, who has to give a small gift to their designated recipient.  We would stick to purely virtual/digital gifts that can be exchanged via forum (such as sketches, poems, music, or recipes), and have no monetary cost. 

Rules and organization of the Secret Santa exchange are in another thread.

Please feel free to share the traditions of whatever holiday you celebrate.

[Lenny]

I might also add that in the Nordic Discussion thread, Christmas/December traditions have been covered, for those interested.

Because I'm weird and multicultural, I celebrate Sinterklaas on the 5th of December each year. In Australia. Yup. For a few weeks, while Sinterklaas is actually in the Netherlands (instead of Spain, his usual residence), we leave our shoes near the door (because we don't have a chimney) and receive a small present in the morning. This is usually a sweet or chocolate of some kind on weekdays, and a small item on Saturdays. Then, on the evening of the 5th of December, we open the larger presents that have been stored underneath our Christmas tree (we usually put it up on the 1st of December, to last the whole month). And of course there are lots of nice foods - mainly fruits (as it is summer) and various Dutch foods/sweets that we've either baked ourselves, or ordered in from overseas. We've also got a tradition of putting all our names in a hat, and the name of the person we pull out is the person we have to get a present for. Aaaand prank gifts are encouraged! It can be a lot of fun.

Also more notes on Sinterklaas - in the Netherlands it's actually a huge national thing. There's an "official" Sinterklaas who has a huge tour through a city (different one each year) after arriving by steamship with his helpers (zwarte pieten), and there's a special news program covering any and all Sinterklaas news over the period of time where he's travelling to the Netherlands from Spain, to when he returns, on the 5th of December. He has his official house, as well - the Pietenhuis - and an official horse that he rides. There are lots of helper Sinterklazen as well, usually one for each town or so. It. Is. HUGE.

Because, as well as being weird and multicultural, I am also a Christian, I celebrate Christmas by going to church - usually the midnight service given by the Anglican church I frequent on Christmas Eve. We usually drive around town beforehand, looking at all the houses decked out in Christmas lights. Some of them are really amazingly impressive. The next day we have a large Christmas barbecue, and sometimes spend it at the beach, depending. And because my mother always celebrated Christmas the way we now celebrate Sinterklaas, we also give gifts on Christmas, though they tend to be few in number and in the forms of books or chocolate.

One thing that's peculiar about my December festivities compared to most other people's is that it only ever concerns my immediate family (parents, siblings). Curse of the immigrant, mmm. The most my extended family features in all of this is perhaps phone calls, and perhaps packages.

[kjeks]

As I was a child, some parents put on Santa's clothings and we had to learn a poem or sing a song and would receive some small gifts. During child hood I was was part of a church near organisation so we talked about St Nikolaus and his deeds. After we moved and we grew older we just made each other little presents. In the schools I attended Santa never visited but where I teach the head master always visits each class and tells them the story of St Nikolaus. Afterwards all come together and sing some songs to his honor. As it is celebrated as a cultural feast and not deducted to church, it does not matter which confession the kids have (our school has a wide range from orthodox christians, catholics and protestants to muslims and some hinduist children). They like it because it is a calm holiday and we teachers are able to talk to them about what is happening in their lives at the moment.

For christmas we don't have a tree anymore but stick to some smaller twigs and self baked candy. My mom used to bake her own ginger bread and as we did not attend one of the curch ceremonys anymore my father would read a christmas story covering topics of today's society. As my grandma was still alive we also met at the small town's market place and celebrated an ecumenical service with the priests of the two different main confessions of our town and mostly their was a foreign missionary of one of some African country attending, too. These would always bring a new chant of their country to us which was mostly a mixture of a local cultural chant adopted to the local interpretation of Christianity. Maybe I will attend this celebration this year. I have not been there since my grandma's death but I think she might like it and I like it if people of various confessions come together and forget about differences for some time.

I nearly forgot, we put our shoes outside as well as children and a little plate with ginger bread and milk, so St Niklas would find something to eat.

[Fenris]

We more or less celebrate Christmas the same way we've done for decades. During Christmas lunch (about 12:00 on the 24th) we eat porridge (oatmeal and rice porridge) with an almond. If there's kids about, we take care that they get an almond each, but otherwise its just put and stirred in the bowl. Whoever gets the almond in their porridge gets an almond in theirs gets a Marzipan pig or some chocolate. After we eat porridge, we go out and put a bowl of porridge (with cinnamon and butter, usually rice porridge) in the barn for Fjøsnissen (the 'Barn Santa' or the 'Barn Gnome'). If there's kids about, someone also takes care to leave some presents 'from' the barn gnome for them (usually handicraft stuff). We're usually visited by other family members during the day, and some stay for the Christmas meal in the evening. Ribs, sauerkraut, meatballs, lamb ribs, potatoes and a lot of gravy, as well as akevitt and soda (not mixed) with the meal. After the meal, there's coffee and cakes, followed by opening of presents.

Decoration-wise, we usually have some Christmas trees we get in the forest outside, and a plastic one inside (as my mother is allergic). Most of the other decorations are stuff we have gotten as presents, stuff people have made in school years ago and such. Trolls, gnomes/nisser and such. We do have a nativity scene, but that is pretty much the only feature of Christianity we got.

In addition, I also celebrate a Juleblot (Christmas Sacrifice) on the solstice (usually the 21st or 22nd of December).

[DzigaWatt]

I second that motion of gift locomotion!

[mithrysc]

Unless anyone else is dying to run the Secret Santa, I can do it (and to keep things neat, I'll probably make Yet Another Thread for it).

The next day we have a large Christmas barbecue, and sometimes spend it at the beach, depending.

The joy of different hemispheres We'd be freezing if we tried a barbecue.

[Clayres]

For Christmas, we switch celebration location (on the 24th) every year, since there's home, my grandparent's place, my other grandparent's place and my father... During the holidays/in the week towards New Year's Eve we try to go to everyone, so that means exchanging gifts two or three times.
And there's always roast goose at my other grandparent's. No Christmas without that.

And I actually don't like New Year's Eve...

[Fen Shen]

The Secret Santa thing sounds really nice to me and I'd like to participate.

[Sunflower]

Unless anyone else is dying to run the Secret Santa, I can do it (and to keep things neat, I'll probably make Yet Another Thread for it).

Would you, please?  If and when you do so, I'll edit my original post in this thread (and the similar one in General Discussion) to point Secret Santa participants that way. 

Thanks so much!

[StellersJayC]

Secret Santa sounds like it could be really fun.

Oh, and reading all of these traditions is fun. Here's my family's:
For Christmas we have a tradition of turning on the Santa-Tracker on Christmas Eve. (Basically it's a thing on one of the local news websites that shows where Santa has been - supposedly in real time - and delivered gifts - complete with poor quality videos of him flying past famous places like the pyramids and London.) After that we'll go to the nine o'clock service at church and then go to bed. Then everyone will go to bed except for my mom and I because we still need to set stuff up for my brother. (That reminds me, this is probably the year he is going to be told Santa isn't real because he's going into middle school. He's probably going to be really upset. I had always suspected that was the case so it didn't hit me too hard, and my sister told my dad when she was seven, "I know Santa isn't real, stop lying to me!!!) We have fun throwing M 'n Ms all over the carpet anyway. Because my brother used to get way too excited, my parents made a rule several years ago that on Christmas morning no one is allowed to speak above a whisper before 7:30 or the sun rises. Whichever comes last. When one of them comes last my dad turns on the Yule Log channel, which is basically a fireplace on the TV that sings Christmas music. That is the signal that you are allowed to touch you're stocking. Everyone gets a pencil, a book, a small toy such as a yo-yo, a small orange, some deodorant, and a whole mess of M 'n Ms that didn't get thrown on the ground at which point we will sing happy birthday to Jesus. Dad goes and makes pancakes while us kids clean up all the M 'n Ms before the dogs can eat anymore of them. We pray and eat the pancakes. Afterward everyone helps clean up the dishes and go to sit around the tree - some years it's real and some years it's fake. We decorate it differently every year; I think one year we balanced my brother's toy cars precariously on the branches. We open gifts. Then at three in the afternoon my moms parents come over and we have a big lunch/dinner. We all eat excitedly because dad never lets anyone eat between breakfast and lunch/dinner. Not even a single M 'n M. The last thing we do is go to bed.
Before writing this I never realized how weird and yet how always-the-same our Christmases are. It might actually be different this year because we moved over the summer.

I don't like New Year's either. I don't even know what exactly we're supposed to be celebrating. Time passing?

[Nimphy]

As I said, I'm in for Secret Santa.

Traditions: in my family we don't usually celebrate Christmas very much. Yes, there is a tree (sometimes we spend the Christam morning/eve stting it up), but it's for New Year's mainly. The presents are also usually given on New Year's - Albanian tradition - although a couple of years ago we opened them on Christmas. Meh. Sometimes we have a big dinner, we pray, sometimes we visit my uncle and aunt and cousins and make biscuits, most of the time we sing Christams songs, but nothing big. We also watch Christmas movies all together, sometimes with the immediate family, others with aunt, uncle and cousins.

As I said, the important festivity is New Year's. We invite people over - they come and go, some remain for a long time, some don't, sometimes our crazy uncle plays with fireworks, and if some good soul decides to also light fireworks we watch them... The last two years my city finally started organizing some kind of party. Music at a low volume, we suspect even purposefully not exciting so people may go back to work the next day, but still. A party, and these last two years we went ice skating on New Year's. When we were younger "The Grandfather of New Year" gave presents to us (me and sis), but for some reason he stopped a while ago  (In Albania there's no "Grandfather Christmas", like in Italy (Babbo Natale), it's "New Year's" (Babagjyshi i Vitit te Ri). For the record, I stopped believing in the man who came down our non-existent chimney to give presents when I was about five. My sister just stopped last year, because now she is in middle school.

As for something more traditionally Italian, I asked my friend. Apparently all the family gathers on Christmas morning (not only the immediate family, all the grannies and cousins and distant cousins and stuff), they go to the church, then have a big lunch/dinner (if I'm not mistaken it's called a cenone, AKA big dinner) that lasts all the way from noon to late afternoon. Adults usually discuss of... whatever adults discuss, the kids go around and play with each other. I suppose that whenever it snows (which is not very often) they go and play outside, I know we do.

Another traditional Italian festivity is Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy). Santa Lucia brings sweets and presents to children, and they usually leave a carrot and some hay for her magical flying donkey to eat. It used to annoy me incredibly when in elementary school my classmates would brag about the new Playstation that Santa Lucia had given them (along with a lot of candy), and I'm pretty sure I even yelled at one of them at a point that Santa Lucia did not exist. Now that I'm on that age where fortunately I never hear of Santa Lucia and her presents, I get to eat the candy that sometimes teachers and other students bring  Then there's also Santo Stefano, but I have no ideahow Italians celebrate that exactly, forgot to ask.

[Pessi]

Another traditional Italian festivity is Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy). Santa Lucia brings sweets and presents to children, and they usually leave a carrot and some hay for her magical flying donkey to eat.

In Finland (and Sweden as far as I know) Lucia (Lusse, Lutu) brings light. It may sound like a small thing but it isn't, december is really dark this far north and is nowadays getting even darker when year after year the snow comes later and later - if at all. And in the 14th century Lucia's day corresponded with the winter solstice, so in Finnish folklore Lucia's night is still mentioned as the longest night of the year: "Lutun yö, Annan aatto, kolmasti kukko orrelta putoo" = "Lucia's night, Anna's eve, three times the rooster falls from his perch." So Lucia's promise that "mörkret skall flykta snart ur jordens dalar", ("darkness shall fly soon from earth's dales") is a very welcome one.

As a kid I dreamed of being chosen as the official Finlands Lucia. It was a bitter dissapointment when it dawned on me that I speak the wrong mothertongue and so never can become Lucia

[Fimbulvarg]

In Finland (and Sweden as far as I know) Lucia (Lusse, Lutu) brings light. It may sound like a small thing but it isn't, december is really dark this far north and is nowadays getting even darker when year after year the snow comes later and later - if at all. And in the 14th century Lucia's day corresponded with the winter solstice, so in Finnish folklore Lucia's night is still mentioned as the longest night of the year: "Lutun yö, Annan aatto, kolmasti kukko orrelta putoo" = "Lucia's night, Anna's eve, three times the rooster falls from his perch." So Lucia's promise that "mörkret skall flykta snart ur jordens dalar", ("darkness shall fly soon from earth's dales") is a very welcome one.

As a kid I dreamed of being chosen as the official Finlands Lucia. It was a bitter dissapointment when it dawned on me that I speak the wrong mothertongue and so never can become Lucia

The meteorological winter solstice is on the 21 of december though. Did they mess up their calendar?

As a child I had the opinion that being chosen as st lucy was a somewhat dangerous task, considering that you have to wear a crown of lit candles.