Author Archives: Charlotte Bartel

Toss of the bouquet

Date_of_performance: 04/25/2025

Informant Name: FR

Language: English 

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student/Vaulting Coach

Primary Language: English

Residence: Westwood

INTERVIEW:

I recently went to my cousin’s wedding in the beginning of April, I guess you can call that recently. One thing that I saw my cousin do after they got married during the reception, was toss the bouquet to the crowd. I knew what it meant, but my younger sister was confused why she did that, so we talked to my mom about it and this is what she said is the meaning of it: “Usually, at traditional weddings, brides will through the bouquet towards family and friends who gather on the dance floor and the person who catches it, if they are single or in a relationship, it would mean they would get married next. It usually surrounds women guests. It basically symbolizes good luck and love in your future relationships. It doesn’t mean it will actually happen, it is supposed to be a lighthearted and fun game where the person who catches the bouquet could get teased and to put pressure on their partner to make a move.” I found this interesting that the bride is willing to make the wedding about someone else and the excitement of them possibly getting married instead of wanting to keep all of the attention of them and their partner and how they just got married. I think my cousin did to keep the wedding ritual alive because it is to normalized to do the bouquet toss at weddings, you get peer pressured to do the traditions that your parents did before you because it is seen as the norm and what everyone should do. I just found the idea of tossing a bouquet at your wedding an interesting wedding ritual.

MY ANALYSIS

I agree with FR about how she choose to make her wedding about someone else by tossing the bouquet. I find western wedding traditions so fascinating and how it mostly focused on the women being given away to the man. For example, the dad walking the bride down the isle as a way to “give her away” to the husband. And now tossing the bouquet to the women guests to see if their partner proposes and it is always about heterosexual relationships or weddings. All of the weddings I’ve been too, have mostly been heterosexual weddings (due to my family members mainly being straight) and all of them have done the bouquet toss. But, the traditional aspects of weddings, example the bouquet toss, is rooted in folklore and the idea that the brides are met with rituals before getting married as a way to represent women losing their innocence and/or virginity. The bouquet toss falls under the idea of whoever gets the bouquet is next to lose their innocence by getting married and “belonging” to their partner and possibly losing the individuality they had before.

Fourth of July ritual

Date_of_performance: 04/25/2025

Informant Name: EG

Language: English 

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student/barista

Primary Language: English

Residence: Santa clarita

INTERVIEW:

A ritual my family started when I was pretty young on the Fourth of July, was to go down to the parade that was happening less than a mile from our house, invite our friends and sit on blankets and watch the floats go by and grabbing the candy we can catch. While it was early, 9 am, it was such a fun way to start the day because I was able to see my friends and some of my family, we would also invite two of my dogs to come with us and they would behave so well. Afterwards, once the parade was over, we would invite everyone back to our house, where we would have a Fourth of July “feast” with deviled eggs, homemade pasta salad my mom made, fruit, many sweet treats and any other food that everyone could bring. We would sit around outside and catch up with everyone, what we were excited for during the rest of the summer and run around in our backyard. Later in the evening, everyone would go up to my grandparent’s house and swim in the backyard pool they have, eat more delicious food (hot dogs, popsicles, homemade chocolate chip cookies) and watch the fireworks when they happen. I have so many fond memories of past fourth of july events when everyone was able to get together and before my family moved away from everyone.

MY ANALYSIS:

Fourth of July has caused many mixed emotions. As of recently, it has been anger or the desire to stay away from celebrating and committing to activities that surround the holiday. Because of the state of the US has of 2020, the idea of spending the holiday with family has taken a step back and has become overshadowed by all of the horrible events that have happened. It causes us to lose sight of the past joy and memories we have created with family from this holiday, and not even celebrating the actual meaning of the holiday, just getting the time in summer to be around our loved ones and friends. EG’s story talking about the past fourth of july’s being spent with families, causes me to reflect on how the holiday used to be celebrated, next to your family while eating good food and looking at the fireworks. It seemed like EG’S time was less spent celebrating the holiday and more time getting the opportunity to be around people who love you and doing summer activities. Again, traditions are usually done with or passed down from your family, so if anything, fourth of july is about family and celebrating each other.

Christmas Eve ritual

Date_of_performance: 04/27/2025

Informant Name: MR

Language: English 

Nationality: American

Occupation: Teacher

Primary Language: English

Residence: Pasadena

INTERVIEW:

My birthday is on Christmas eve and by that time everyone has their lights up in suspense for Christmas. When I was younger, my parents and I started a tradition (or ritual) o drive to a neighborhood that were having light shows, and go look at the Christmas lights in the car with holiday music playing. It was always at night, so it was a wonderful way to end my birthday and introduce Christmas. It also was a great way to bring my family together, since my father was working a lot of the time, so I will always cherish those times. I loved the tradition so much, that I now do it with my daughters and son. Every Christmas eve, we would go drive to any neighborhood that is putting on an exciting Christmas light show, turn on the Christmas channel so it matches up with the lights and take in the view as we drive through the neighborhood. Christmas time always ends up becoming a stress with the pressure of getting everyone the gift they want, having dinner with the extended family, that it can be hard to find time to take a minute to breathe and actually enjoy what Christmas is all about. And to me, Christmas is all about being with my family, so having this time during my birthday where I can get my daughters and son together to feel the Christmas spirit, is a tradition that I’m always going to try to keep up as a long as I can.

MY ANALYSIS:

Christmas traditions are type of traditions that I hear about the most because it is always so surrounded by family and spending time with family that you want to cherish every moment you can get with them before everything starts to get complicated. Her tradition of seeing Christmas lights, is a great tradition to keep up because it gets everyone excited and is something that everyone can look forward to, so it can be easy for this tradition to stay around or even to make Christmas feel more like the old Christmas we felt as kids, sitting in the back seat while old holiday music plays on the radio, falling asleep as Christmas lights pass by the window, small memories like those is what keeps the joy of Christmas alive. The peace of it all, having something you can look forward to in the year, knowing it will always be there for you to help you get through the months or even through the seasonal/winter depression that may come up.

Christmas tamales

Date_of_performance: 04/28/2025

Informant Name: XM

Language: English/Spanish  

Nationality: Chilean

Occupation: Student

Primary Language: English

Residence: Santa Monica

INTERVIEW:

During every Christmas with my family we would usually eat tamales, not sure why it was tamales, but I was guaranteed a tamale when I went to my family’s house for Christmas. We aren’t Mexican, so I don’t understand, but it is a tradition and it feels with warmth and it was one of my favorite traditions during Christmas because it reminds me of my family and the time we spent together. It reminds me of good memories, makes me happy, and reminds me of home. I miss those christmases spent together as a whole family and when things felt easier as a child.

MY ANALYSIS

Hearing this story reminds me of the nostalgic Christmas when I was younger. How everything felt simple and nothing was changing. People fall into a routine during the holidays especially Christmas, because you are a kid so you go wherever your family goes, so you get used to the repetitive traditions that you create with the family you are with. The interesting concept of traditions, is that they don’t have to make sense on paper, it is something you create with family that you carry with you because it reminds you of home, so even if XM isn’t Mexican, having tamales every Christmas started to be associated with warm and happier memories and that is why traditions are made. It reminds her of her family and the Christmas she spent with them before she grew up and go thrown into the world and the messiness of it all.

Whispers of a ghost

Date_of_performance: 03/29/2025

Informant Name: BT

Language: English 

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student 

Primary Language: English

Residence: Los Angeles 

Interview:

BT: I don’t necessarily believe, like I have my own spiritual beliefs. So like I don’t necessarily fully believe in ghosts, but like I have had like my own like parental experience.

BT: My mom is a realtor and she like does probably way more than like a realtor should do. Like she does like duties in her work that she’s, I’m like, okay, you should like have the client probably do that. But these clients like moved out of their house. And they left it like a little bit messy. But I think that they were probably like in a hurry to move out and everything.

BT: So she’s like, Hey, can you guys, like to me and my older sister, can you guys go and help me clean this stuff? We’re like, Yeah, of course.

BT: So, we went to the house and it was like, main floor was kind of big, upstairs was like a little lost.area and then downstairs like you walk down the stairs and there’s a room on this side of the room. *she gestures to the left with her hands*

BT: So we, my sister and I went downstairs, my mom stayed upstairs and I go and it’s scary because I don’t know if it’s a paranormal experience or if someone was literally in the house.But I go downstairs and I’m like first, like I’m going down and my sister’s going down behind me. And I look to the right in this room, it’s dark. It’s like after the sun went down, so it’s also dark outside. And I look in that room, don’t see anything.

BT: I look to my left and then there’s like a walkout basement, it’s a walkout basement, so there was a door. The door was open. *pause* The door was wide open, like leading to outside. So I was like, okay. I was like, let me just go shut it, ’cause we were like, maybe it was the wind, like maybe the family didn’t lock in.

ME: Yeah. Yeah

BT: And I had no explanation as to why it was open. So I went from the stairs into the room, the door was here, I closed the door, and I walked in.

ME: Okay.

BT: On my way back, I kind of stop here, so like here’s the stairs. My sister’s at the bottom. And I’m like, to my sister, oh, I don’t know why that was, I don’t know why that was open.

BT: But like, I don’t really survey the rest of the room. ‘Cause I was like, kind of jogging back because I was freaked out by the door being opened. And so as I’m saying that to my sister, and suddenly I hear heavy breathing…

ME: Oh my god! That’s terrifying.

BT: I hear very like heavy breathing from like the corner of the room, but it’s dark, so I can’t really see. It’s like shadowy, so I’m like, and I don’t even take a look. It’s like shadowy, so I’m like, and I don’t even take a look or even want to look back.

BT: I literally, I swear like adrenaline, I think. I literally carried my sister like up the stairs, ’cause I was pushing her, like she didn’t hear it.

ME: Oh my god.

BT: that I literally carried my sister like up the stairs, ’cause I was pushing her, like she didn’t hear it. She was like at the bottom of the stairs. And I was like, go, like go, go, go, go, pushing her up the stairs trying to get out. So we literally ran up the stairs and like fell, like I literally fell up the stairs. Once I got to the top, I fell on the ground. Once I got to the top, I fell on the ground. My mom was standing at the top of the stairs because she heard us running up in a hurry and she was like “What the heck just happened?” And I was like, I think that there’s someone downstairs.

ME: Oh my god.

BT: And I told her I heard someone breathing right in my ear. And I was like, someone literally opened the door and the door is open, so I think a person was downstairs. And so my mom was like, “Okay, let me go check.” She goes down and there’s no one.

ME: That’s crazy!

BT: So I’m like, either it was a real person, which is even scary to me. It’s like they waited  before my mom got down there, and they’re gone. So that was my only like– Oh my god. Yeah, and it just felt eerie and weird and scary to me.

ME: No, that would freak me out.

BT: Yeah, it was freaky. It was probably like 8 o’clock we had gotten there. So it was like sun was going down and then by the time we went downstairs, it was dark.

ME: That would be the last time im every entering that house again.

BT: Exactly! It’s like I’m not messing with it. I’m not messing with any ghosts in there. But that’s my personal paranormal experience. I hope that is helpful!

ME: That’s perfect! That’s amazing!

My interpretation

I want to believe that this was a ghost that my friend heard down in the basement. If it was a person, I feel like she would’ve heard footsteps if they walked back inside or coming up behind her. And since her mom is a realtor, she definitely would’ve down a check down there after the clients left or heard the door open. Her sister also didn’t hear the whisper herself, so it likely is a ghost. And if it was someone trying to scare her, they would’ve done more than just breathe, they could’ve talked or grabbed her arm to really freak her out. She mentioned how she has her own spiritual beliefs and that could fall under believing in ghosts. This also could be a psychological feeling, she got freaked out by the door being opened and thought she heard something, since her mom didn’t see anything, so I am leaning towards it being a ghost or her imagination.