Christmas everywhere! (:

Hello!!!

Christmas is getting so close so I thought I would talk about Christmas traditions of a few other countries and some of my own families traditions.

We all know how the people of the United States celebrate Christmas.

China -The Christians in China light their homes with beautiful paper lanterns. Santa is called Dun Che Lao Ren. The children hang stockings just as we do.

England- We have gotten many of our christmas customs from england. One of there things are our christmas trees. There are some stories of this starting because the king and queen. In england instead of mailing out their christmas list, children throw it into the fireplace and Father Christmas reads the smoke. England is also where the tradition of hanging stockings by the chimney began, due to the fact that Father Christmas(Santa) once accidentally dropped some gold coins on his way down the chimney which got caught in a drying stocking. Another interesting thing is that instead of opening up their gifts as soon as they wake up, English children wait until the afternoon.

France- In France Santa is known as Pere Noel. He has a partner called Pre Fouettard who keeps track of who has been good or bad for Pere Noel. In some parts of France, Pere Noel brings small gifts on december 6^th and comes back to deliver more on Christmas. In France the children get to open their presents on Christmas, but the parents and other adults have to wait until New Years. In France the children sometimes set their shoes in front of the fire place hoping that Pere Noel might leave gifts in their shoes for them. They also have dinner at midnight on December 24 that is called Le Reveillon.

Mexico- In mexico they call christmas Navidad. They celebrate christmas by having a posada, it a is a time when people dress up as Mary and Joseph going aroud asking if mary can stay there. They ar e told that there is no room and shut the door but the door then opens back up and they are invited in for songs, food, and a piñata for the kids. The celebration lasts nine days and on the ninth day they are told there is room for mary and they go to church and celebrate Jesus's birth.

My family celebrates by all going to my grandparents house over break. This year Christmas is on a Tuesday, so we will travel to Wisconsin to my grandparents home on Saturday. We'll probably relax Saturday afternoon. My grandmother always puts up a large Christmas tree that has to be real. She has many homemade ornaments, but one special one...a pickle. She and my grandfather always hide a pickle ornament in the Christmas Tree and everyone has to try and find it without touching the tree. The story is, whoever finds it will have an extra present under the tree. Sunday will be a day for the men to go deer hunting while the women make lefse. My grandmother is 100% Norwegian. My grandfather is 100% German. My grandmother tries to integrate both nationalities in the holidays. Lefse is a Norwegian food, kind of like a tortilla. It's made out of potatoes. Sunday afternoon will be a cookie baking day. Yum! Monday is Christmas Eve. My uncles will come to my grandparents home with my cousins for the day. All the kids will hopefully get to be outside building show forts. 

 

My mom grew up in Wisconsin where there is usually a lot of snow, more than there is here. She is a pro at building snow forts. When she was younger, the snow forts took up the entire front yard at my grandparents. That evening, everyone will get dressed up and go to the Christmas Eve service at church. My cousins who are still in gradeschool are all in the childrens program. It's always fun to see if we can get a bag of goodies that is meant for the kids on our way out of church. It's usually full of fruit, peanuts and candies. Then we go home where my grandmother has an already prepared seafood chowder for us to eat. It's amazing! After the late dinner, we get to open the gifts that are in our stockings. Then of course, it's always a rush for my little cousins to gto home and into bed because Santa Clause will be there soon. Christmas Day, everyone gathers back at my grandparents home sometime late morning after they have opened their gifts from Santa. We then get to eat lutefisk and the lefse that was made a couple days earlier. This is another Norwegian food. You take the Lefse and butter one side. Then you take a boiled potato and mash it onto the lefse. Next goes the lutefisk which is a fish. Then you roll it up like a burrito and eat it. It's not something that everyone likes but we all try it. We also have either some German food with that or whatever my grandfather wants which is usually ham. Then we all migrate to the livingroom to open our gifts. There is usually a couple football games mixed in there somewhere too. Then we wait a week until New Years. New Years Day is also a seafood day. All the mean cook a seafood boil which consists of potatoes, carrots, onions, shrimp, cod, scallops and whatever other seafood they decide to add. Everyone brings a dish to pass. We eat, play cards and watch football, usually the Wisconsin Badgers playing in the Rose Bowl. (936)

Ardeeemilla(: