"Christmas day is in our grasp So long as we have hands to clasp"
Joined: Dec 2004 Gender: Female Posts: 1,312 Location: Ontario, Canada
Christmas Around the World « Thread Started on Mar 27, 2006, 8:32pm »
A few of us talked before about sharing knowledge about various Christmas traditions . . . finally I am starting a thread where everyone is welcome to contribute.
We can share facts, personal traditions, etc.
I'll get us started with a few traditions that involve Santa Claus and gift-giving.
The American version of St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus originally came from the Dutch version called Sint Klaas. The Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam (New York) brought this fun and lively tradition (some even say cult) to America.
In the United States and Canada, his name is Santa Claus.
In China, he is called Shengdan Laoren.
In England, his name is Father Christmas , where he has a longer coat and a longer beard.
In France, he's known as Pere Noel.
In Germany, children get presents from Christindl, the Christ Child.
Customs of the Christmas Season in Spanish speaking countries have many similarities, and many variations. All of Latin America and Spain are predominantly Catholic. For many of these countries Baby Jesus, el Niņo Jesus, brings gifts for children.
In Costa Rica, Colombia, and parts of Mexico, the gift bearer is el Niņo Jesus, "the infant Jesus." In Brazil and Peru, he's called Papa Noel.
In Puerto Rico, children receive gifts from the Three Kings on January 6th, also called the celebration of Epiphany, the 3 Kings' Day. Each child puts grass under their bed for the camels. In the morning the grass is replaced with gifts. Puerto Rico does its major gift giving on December 25, with the Christmas Tree and Santa Claus.
In Greek, St. Nicholas is known as Hagios Nikolaos, Bishop of Myra (in the present day Turkey), St Nicholas reportedly died about 350 AD.
Today, this mythical character is still alive and well and is known all over the world as: Nicholas of Myra, Santa Claus or "Santa" in America.
His fame spread rapidly during the Middle Ages and thousands of churches are dedicated to him.
He has been the patron saint of Russia, Moscow, Greece, children, sailors, prisoners, bakers, pawnbrokers, shopkeepers and wolves.
His gift-giving role in Christmas rites probably follows from his fame as the friend of children. The story also tells that he used to give anonymous donations of gold coins to persons in need. His following spread in Europe and Christmas presents were distributed on December 6th when the celebration of St. Nicholas took place.
In many countries this day is still the day of Christmas gift-giving, although there are more places around the world conforming to the custom of celebrating on the 24th/25th of December.
"Christmas day is in our grasp So long as we have hands to clasp"
Joined: Dec 2004 Gender: Female Posts: 1,312 Location: Ontario, Canada
Re: Christmas Around the World « Reply #1 on Apr 22, 2006, 7:32am »
Christmas Trivia from Auntie Mistletoe
Every year since 1947 the people in Oslo have given a Christmas tree to the city of Westminster. The gift is an expression of goodwill and gratitude for Britain's help to Norway in the 1939-1945 war.
The first American Christmas carol was written in 1649 by a minister named John de Brebeur and is called "Jesus is Born".
Mexicans call the poinsettia "Flower of the Holy Night" - the Holy Night is the Mexican way of saying "Christmas Eve".
Tom Smith who owned a sweet shop in London was the originator of the cracker. In the 1840s Tom found that people like sugar almonds, but while he was in France he discovered a variety of sweets wrapped up in a twist of paper. These bonbons were popular, so Tom decided to copy them. When Tom noticed that young men were buying them to give to their sweethearts he began to place "love mottoes" on small slips of paper inside the sweet wrapping.
In 1846 Tom's thoughts turned towards Christmas - instead of sweets he thought he would place toys and novelties inside the twisted wrapping. He experimented with this and the idea of producing a wrapping that could be pulled apart - just like the cracker as we know it today.
The largest functional Christmas cracker was 45.72 metres long and 3.04 metres in diameter. It was made by Australian international rugby player Ray Price in Markson Sparks of New South Wales, Australia and was pulled in the car park of the Westfield Shopping Town in Chatswood, Sydney, Australia on 9 November 1991.
The first church the Dutch built in New York City was named in St Nicholas' honour -St Nicholas Church.
Saint Boniface is said to have substituted a fir tree for the pagan oak in the eighth century as a symbol of faith. Martin Luther fostered the Christmas tree cult by using a candlelit tree as a symbol of Christ's heavenly home, while trees decorated with candles, fruit and paper flowers were introduced into Britain soon after Queen Victoria's marriage.
Joined: Mar 2005 Gender: Female Posts: 353 Location: Canberra, Australia
Re: Christmas Around the World « Reply #2 on Apr 29, 2006, 12:03am »
In Australia most people celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December. Although a lot of people do have a celebration on Christmas eve.
Our Christmas lunch is often a cold seafood meal with salads and cold desserts like pavalova or cheesecake or the BBQ lunch is popular as well...
At our house we go out to Christmas carols and then come home and we have a big baked dinner on Christmas eve and have the cold lunch on Christmas day.
Every Christmas morning since my boys were small, I have baked cinnamon rolls to have while we open our presents.
It would be great to hear how each of you celebrate the season.
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A few of us talked before about sharing knowledge about various Christmas traditions . . . finally I am starting a thread where everyone is welcome to contribute.![[image]](http://honeybearshaven.com/mymessageboard/smilies/scene.gif)
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