Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Christmas Eve Festivities

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Dallas, Teexas
Performance Date: March 15, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: n/a

“Our family gathers at our home on Christmas Eve. Um we exchange gifts before Santa comes and usually have a really nice dinner like tenderloin, followed by a birthday cake for Jesus and all the kids gather around and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and blow out the candles. And they we use, use isn’t a good word, but we use Christmas crackers, and everybody stands around the table and pulls the crackers. Usually in the cracker is a hat and toy and a joke in each cracker. So everybody shares their joke and puts on their hat, and this is usually right after dessert. And we do this just kind of to have fun I guess. And then Kate usually performs a concert and plays Christmas carols. And that began about ten years ago, and all three kids would play in the concert because they played piano, but as the other two dropped out of piano, Kate was the only one who kept it going. And a cousin played once, but Kate is the only one who plays now. It pretty much just adds festivity to the celebration.”

 

Informant: The informant is a fifty-two years old, a mother of three. She is of Irish, French, and German descent, and was born in Chicago. She moved to Dallas when she was three, and she is the oldest of three children, with a younger brother and sister. She is an active member of the Catholic Church.

 

Analysis:

 

This particular holiday ritual is interesting because it is similar to a birthday party. I think that this is due to the fact that the family is Catholic, and therefore recognizes the true meaning of Christmas as the birth of Jesus. Therefore, they celebrate Christmas Eve as they would celebrate the birthday of a family member. Every family member gathers together as they would at a birthday party, and they even have a birthday cake and sing happy birthday to Jesus.

This reaffirms that this time period, Christmas Eve, is a liminal time, as Jesus is brought into the world. The magic that surrounds the beliefs about Santa and Christmas Eve are incorporated in the family gathering and sharing of presents, while the Catholic teachings are kept in mind and celebrated as well. The blowing out of candles by the children can represent making a wish as children would for their birthdays, but doing it for Jesus.

In addition, the use of the Christmas crackers is interesting. Everyone is able to partake in the silliness of this practice by putting on a hat and sharing a joke. This brings the family closer together in celebration. It is also a very childlike performance, reaffirming the likeness of this celebration to a child’s birthday party, which is true to the Catholic meaning of the holiday.

Also, the concert that is put on by the children supports this as well. The children are able to demonstrate their skills and entertain the adults by playing the piano. Although only one child continues, who happens to be the youngest in the family, it is still representative of the festivities of Christmas Eve as childlike. This honors the birth of Jesus as a newborn child, by making the ritual of Christmas Eve as celebrated by this family as like that of a child’s birthday party.

Handshake

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Dallas, Texas
Performance Date: March 15, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: n/a

“You’d say is-they-alethes (spelling uncertain), I’m not sure what that means, but it’s Greek, and I think it means in the bonds. And you’d take the person’s hand and give it three pulses. And I was the marshal in the house, which is kind of like the parliamentarian, so I would stand at the front of the house and give everyone the handshake when they came in. And everybody would have to say is they- alethes (spelling uncertain) and shake my hand and that was kind of funny and then the president would say sister marshal are the chapter rooms secure? And I would say yes they are secure and then we would close chapter doors and we would have our meeting. And you learned the handshake after you pledged, and you learned the saying and the traditions. And it was a way of letting us know you were in the sorority.”

Informant: The informant is a mother of three currently living in Dallas, Texas, to where she moved from Chicago at the age of three. She attended the University of Texas at Austin, and was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. She graduated in 1983 with a Bachelor’s degree in Advertising and has lived in Dallas ever since. She has a younger brother and a younger sister.

Analysis:

This ritual is an example of folklore that distinguishes those within the sorority from those not in the sorority. As a sisterhood, sororities have many traditions and rituals that only members are allowed to know. The sisterhood can only be entered if a girl decides to go through recruitment and mutually selects the house. Upon this selection, the girl can enter the sisterhood. Many rituals are taught to the girls, but this specific one is interesting because it is similar to the secret handshakes that children would come up with for their best friends. When children are younger, they often come up with handshakes so as to distinguish the special bond of friendship that they have. In accordance with this, the delta delta delta sorority, or Tri Delta sorority has instituted their own handshake as a way to determine whether or not someone is in the sorority. As they like to keep their meetings secret and only giving information to those within the sorority, the handshake is their way of determining membership upon their entrance to the meetings. The marshal is the job held by the person who determines this, and therefore keeps any outsiders from entering the meetings. This is a way to ensure that this sisterhood remains intact and keeps those who are within separated from those who are not. The saying that goes with the handshake re-affirms this as well.

Shabbos

Nationality: American
Age: 85
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Palm Beach, Florida
Performance Date: 4/24/16
Primary Language: English

 

TK: What did you do every Friday night?

GK: We had Shabbos dinner, I lit the candles, with a table cloth. My mother always had food for us; she was such a wonderful cook. Your daddy would go to synagogue with my father and he would walk 8 or 9 blocks. And in schul he was the most behaved boy you had ever seen. Everyone giving him candy. He loved afterward when they had the drinks and food. Ross was my father’s only grandson. He had 6 granddaughters. We went to synagogue in the morning–

TK: Saturday morning?

GK: Yes, Ross, my parents and me. After we came home all the nieces came over for lunch because they all loved my mother’s cooking.

TK: So lunch was a big thing?

GK: Very special because my mother made the chicken well done and everybody was fighting for it. But Ross got service first, your dad, because he was the only boy. They were fun times; we always had big dinners.

TK: Was there a certain dish or food that was at every dinner?

GK: My mother made white fish that was delicious. We never bought fish from a store. She was also a very good cook because my grandfather was in the baking business. Strudel, everything the kids loved. She loved the kitchen. Everything was spotless, all white. And the kids loved her food and she made everything the way the children liked it. Then we moved to Florida.

TK: So in Florida you started hosting dinners?

GK: Yes, I started making dinners. We went to a congregation and the rabbi had married me. He was from Michigan which was very weird.

TK: Who used to come to dinners in Miami?

GK: My children. My husband’s brother and his wife. And my aunt used to come from the winter with her husband. We always had relatives and friends come in. We were always very busy. And then six years later we moved back to Michigan and did the same thing. It was joyous, a very joyous time.

TK: Were you orthodox?

GK: We were very orthodox. My father was ultra religious. We couldn’t eat meat out or anything. Papa’s family was religious but not as quite as religious. I used to change all the dishes and everything because I had lunch at my house after services. But you know you don’t stay as religious.

TK: When daddy was growing up were you conservative?

GK: Yes, we went to a congregation that was conservative. The men and women sit together. In Orthodox the men and women don’t sit together.

 

THE INFORMANT: The informant is my dad’s mother, who grew up in Michigan, where she lived until she moved to Florida. She came from a family of immigrant Russian Jews and maintained the Jewish religion in her own life, which has evolved through living in America.

ANALYSIS: The tradition of Friday night shabbat dinner is still very intact in modern Jewish homes. The dinners my grandmother is referencing from fifty years ago are still quite similar in their existence in today’s world; those more religious families go to synagogue, but even those without this weekly tradition often still maintain a culinary tradition. It is very family-oriented, showing the emphasis on family, tradition, and memories.

Never Put a Hat on a Bed (superstition)

Nationality: American
Age: 45
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Beverly Hills, CA
Performance Date: 4/24/16
Primary Language: English

Growing up my mom always told me never to put a hat on a bed because it brings bad luck. I am always very conscious if I’m wearing a hat never to place it on a bed, and I really notice it when I’m packing for a trip–I always put the hat far away from the bed. If I’m with friends and they place a hat on a bed I will always be aware of it but won’t say anything because I don’t want to impose, but it does make me nervous. My mother was passed down this superstition from her mother, who has plenty of superstitions from growing up in London.

INFORMANT: My mother, via her mother.

ANALYSIS: Research has provided several examples of cultures who find this superstition particularly strong, especially cowboys, boxers and actors/theatrical workers, three groups who are notorious for retaining superstitions. The origin of the prohibition of this behavior has been explained as “preventing the spread of head lice” as well as possibly originating in the 20s when gangsters hid guns under their hats on beds in hotel rooms, preventing them from being found if they were frisked, yet examples from Jamaican student essays from the 1890s show the superstition being used even back then, so it is likely to have developed far before the 1920s gangster heyday.

One for Sorrow, Two For Joy (nursery rhyme)

According to an old superstition, the number of magpies one encounters will determine whether one experiences bad or good luck. Like many folk songs and nursery rhymes, there is considerable variation regarding the lyrics, but here is a contemporary version:

One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret,
Never to be told.
Eight for a wish,
Nine for a kiss,
Ten for a bird,
You must not miss.

ANALYSIS: Magpies have frequently been considered a bad omen in many cultures, specifically Britain as far back as the early sixteenth century. As the rhyme shows, most of the numbers have good things associated with them; the only bad magpie to see is one lone magpie. For this reason, in many parts of the United Kingdom, “people will salute a single magpie and say “Good morning Mr Magpie. How is your lady wife today?” By acknowledging the magpie in this way you are showing him proper respect in the hope that he will not pass bad fortune on to you. By referring to the magpie’s wife you are also implying that there are two magpies, which bring joy rather than sorrow according to the popular rhyme.” The fact that this superstition has lasted so long reminds us that, especially in places with such ancient culture as the UK, old superstitions die hard and many of our modern ways of behavior stem from them.