Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Christmas Fishes

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: New York
Performance Date: 4/22/13
Primary Language: English

Sarah grew up in a traditional Italian-American Catholic family. Traditionally, she knew that it was usual for Italian people to make many fish dishes on Christmas, as they are not supposed to eat meat during that time. As Sarah put it “hardcore like Biblical Christian Italians” do eleven fishes. She couldn’t remember the reasoning behind that. “Normal intense Italians” do seven fishes. But her family doesn’t do that anymore, sometimes they get up to five, but her mom now works full time and doesn’t have the time to make seven different fish dishes. When her grandmother was still in charge of Christmas dinners she made all seven. No matter how many were made, Sarah never ate any because she doesn’t like fish and prefers other Christmas dishes.

I believe that Sarah is mentioning her family’s interpretation of the “Feast of the Seven Fishes,” (in Italian “Festa dei setti pesce”), a tradition of eating fish on Christmas Eve that arose from the Roman Catholic tradition of abstaining from certain types of foods on the days surrounding certain holy days. While the tradition is of seven fishes (that would be what “Normal intense Italians” do according to Sarah) since the tradition came to America with Italian immigrants it has been known to have as many as thirteen different seafood dishes. The number seven has been speculated to represent the seventh day on which God rested from creating the Earth or simply because the number is the most repeated in the Bible.

For further discussion of the Feast of Seven Fishes in Italian-American culture, see: Penna, Joanna Della. “Italian American Holiday Traditions.” Italian America 2007: 6,7,29

The Snipe Hunt

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Dentist
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/29/2013
Primary Language: English

My father was in the boy scouts all throughout his childhood. He’s very proud of the time he spent and the fact that he was the youngest Eagle Scout in the state at the time. When we found a box containing his old boy scout badges and uniform, he told me this story.

When there was a group of two or three “Tenderfoots,” the youngest boy scout members, on a camping trip, they would be taken out of the camp during the night. Their scout leaders would direct them to collect one metal wash basin (that was traditionally used to clean dishes) and return to the clearing. As the boys were collecting these wash basins, every other person in the camp knew what they were being directed to and was in on the joke.

Once the boys returned, they were told about the “snipes.” Creatures that ran very fast through the forest at night but they were drawn to light and shiny things. The boys were directed to hold their wash basins just so towards the moon so that the light reflected off of the metal and the snipes would run towards them. Once the snipes arrived they could simply drop the wash basins on them and they would have caught their first snipe!

The boys who would be around 10 or 11 years old, were left out for around thirty minutes, mostly terrified and waiting for a speeding snipe to approach them, until the leaders came and collected them. Then the boys were told the joke and they were officially done with their first snipe hunt.

For another person’s experience with their first snipe hunt, see: A Snipe Hunt Robert D. Tollison Public Choice , Vol. 120, No. 3/4 (Sep., 2004), pp. 241-246

The Chat-N-Cut

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Electronic Medical Records Representative
Residence: San Diego
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

The Chat-N-Cut is when a person encounters a really long line at someplace like the grocery store or outside of a bar. If that person sees someone further up in the line that they know, even if that person is barely an acquaintance. They’ll go up to that person saying something like “Ohhh, can’t believe you’re here!” To cut the line.

I’ve experienced this practice many times but had never heard the term until Josh told it to me in relation to waiting in long lines at the grocery store near his fraternity house in college.

The Skippy Jar

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle, WA
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

In Shula’s sorority, as an incentive to attend classes, girls would be allowed to put their name in the “Skippy jar” (an empty jar of Skippy peanut butter) if they had not skipped classes at all for the week. Although I’m sure that my cousin must have been selected quite a few times as she considers the idea of skipping class horrifying, she wasn’t totally sure what the reward for getting your name pulled out of the “Skippy jar” was. She thinks “you got a 10 dollar gift card to Starbucks or something.”

Sleepover Contracts

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

When Shula was younger, she and her sister would spend most of the summer at their grandparent’s house in Los Angeles where their younger cousin also lived. The two girls always wanted to spend the night at their cousin’s house instead of at their grandparents’ because they had many rules and they wanted to stay up all night watching TV at their cousin’s house. However, with each night that they would stay at their cousin’s, get no sleep, make lots of noise and lots of mess, it became more difficult to get permission for these sleepovers. Undeterred, the three girls created “Sleepover Contracts” with promises for how good they would be, etc. to be signed by each girl. These were then presented to the grandparents and parents as proof that they deserved to have sleepovers. Usually these contracts were looked at as being “too cute” and were accepted. The girls also used power point presentations and pro v. con lists in their eternal quest for sleepovers.