Category Archives: Holidays

Holidays and holiday traditions

Shabbat Tradition

Text: “I first did Shabbat with my family growing up every Friday. Then I went to a Jewish school from kindergarten to eighth grade. Every Friday there, we did Shabbat lunch where we mixed with all the grades. It was a more reformed school so it wasn’t super intense. When I started going to sleepaway camp, we did Shabbat on Friday there and it was just a really great community there. As my sister and I got older, things got busier so we couldn’t spend every Friday night doing Shabbat. We would always try to find a time once a month to do it. I grew up with my grandpa being a rabbi so we would go to St. Louis with my family and do a shabbat there. First you light the candle, then you do grape juice and wine, then you would do the Havdalah. This was a special part of camp for me because we always sang special songs. My parents, my dad especially, are very religious so this was always an important celebration for me.”

Context: The informant is Jewish-American, and originally from Chicago. She describes Shabbat as a significant celebration for her. Shabbat is a traditional Jewish celebration. It is the Jewish day of rest, from Friday to Saturday evening, and it is a time to rest from work and gather with loved ones. Specifically, as the informant describes, it is celebrated through a dinner. This is especially true because her grandfather is a Rabbi, so she grew up very tied to the Jewish religion. She says she is not as strictly religious as her father and grandfather, as they keep kosher and she does not, but she still feels that being Jewish is an important part of her identity. She says that Shabbat has been a part of her identity ever since she can remember, as she did it since her early childhood and continued this tradition throughout school and camp. Shabbat reminds her of her family and friends, which is why it remains so special for her, even if she is not able to celebrate it every Friday.

Analysis: 

Shabbat functions as a vernacular religious practice, as it is celebrated and adapted by individuals in different ways, and is often diverged from institutional expectations. The informant grew up in a religious household, but her Shabbat experience is shaped by other environments, including school and summer camp. Each experience has added a different layer and new meaning onto the ritual. The informant’s talks about both the loss and adaptation of the celebration over time. Throughout her life, she has had phases where she celebrates Shabbat weekly, and then other, busier times of her life when she is unable to. This shows how the ritual can act as identity performance. Even if she is unable to practice it weekly, the symbolic power still retains, and it is just as special and important to her.Also, the fact that she celebrates it in so many places (at home, camp, and school) shows that rituals can evolve contextually. Specifically, at her camp, she sings special songs, which is not something she does at other locations. This shows key features of folklore, including multiplicity and variation. Additionally, the ritual can create community, as she mentions. For her, camp becomes a site of ritual performance, creating a sense of communitas. This social unity is what makes the celebration so special for the informant.

The celebration of Shabbat becomes ritualized through the routine that takes place—the candle lighting, wine, and Havdalah. These acts are not only religious, but are also acts of folk performance.

Additionally, with her grandpa being a rabbi, this shows how heritage can play an important role in rituals. She is able to sustain this sense of family and heritage through celebrating the Shabbat tradition. This speaks to the purpose of folklore as a whole, she is learning the lore from her folk, in this case, her family. The relationship with her grandfather also reflects the combination of institutional and vernacular religion. He is an institutionally religious figure, but the way that they celebrate Shabbat is reflective of vernacular religion. This concept of heritage also shows how rituals can act as a method of cultural continuity. She is connecting to her Jewish heritage through ritualization.

Holi – The Festival of Colors

Nationality: Australian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Hyderabad, India
Language: English

Festival: Holi — The Festival of Colors

Background/Informant’s Interpretation: Playing with colors, since a young age in India, Holi is something fond to him, and is happy to find in the United States, being abroad and away from home. Introduced by his family, specifically, his dad, at the age of 4, Holi is a Hindu festival where individuals throw color and water at each other. To him and those across the country, it symbolizes that good has beaten evil hence spring has arrived. Music, loud drums are played and people dance in the streets with traditional food being passed around normally cold drinks and desserts like thandai and khulfi. Sweets are also made to be shared with family and friends. Recently, playing holi at USC brought fond memories of throwing colors at his sister, demonstrating shared memories through a heritage-centered festival

My Interpretation: Besides sounding like a good time, this festival is key in his development as a person, and also symbolizes how part of your heritage can be shared and showcased with others. With traditions such as the type of food and the objects being used in the festival remaining consistent, we can see that the past is being shared with the present through a shared means. Furthermore, culture is something that is shared here as it is with family and loved ones. This association plays into the idea that this festival appears on campuses and nontraditional locations, which previously would have been colorless.

Kaju Katli – A Staple Sweet

Nationality: Indian
Age: 18
Residence: Hyderabad, India
Language: English

Text: Kaju Katli

Background/Informant’s Interpretation: A sweet that roughly translates to cashew diamond, this good is enjoyed and can be found at any festival or pooja being performed in India. Traditionally, sweets are offered after a festival or pooja to celebrate the completion, the auspiciousness, and the good they tend to bring. Sometimes, his mom would make them for him to enjoy after he did well on a test or if his parents were in a good mood. This led to him consuming 10 to 15 at a time and passing out on his couch after a sugar crash. This sweet, is a processed white diamond that is prepared by a combination of dry ingredients such as cashew and sugar, making it into a fudge-like consistency. He remembers him and his dad going to local vendors and street shops to collect these sweets while being ordained in Traditional clothing called Kurtas for men and saris for women.

My Interpretation: The sweetness itself sounds key in the celebration and essential to a certain tradition that is maintained time after time. The fact that it is interchangeable with other ones that can be used, but also is needed at the end of the festival, symbolizes the fact that without it or its adjacent parts of the festival or the ritual seems to be incomplete. Hindu rituals tend to emphasize this idea of good triumphing, so the sweet is sort of a key factor in representing this in a materialistic way. Furthermore it is a cultural item that can be shared and enjoyed by others. I feel that it also connects to heritage and ties into glocal culture as a local tradition can be mass-produced and is seen on a global level in cities across the country and out of its home region.

Aarti – A Ritual of Lights

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Connecticut, United States
Language: English

Festival: Aarti – A hindu ritualistic offering of Lights

Informant’s Interpretation: Celebrating with his parents, this festival is celebrated during the fall season of the year, falling around Halloween. Centered around aarti, where a lamp is lit with fat and clarified butter, his family offers each lamp to a specific god. His parents did this with him daily before dinner as a culmination of the day. With his dad, his mom, and he coming back from work, school, and other strenuous day activities, this ritual brings them all together on a positive note. Waving it in a circular motion to a deity, they sing prayers or mantras to show offering and praise to the gods.

My Interpretation: I find this intriguing due to the fct that this is cultural aspect is spread amongst the varying ethnic groups across India and similar forms of it appear in other religions or festivals. Here, a worldly sort of meaning can be interpreted into one ethno-religion centered area but at the same is representative of shared beliefs. For example, a group in North India might believe in a god centered around their geographic region, while one in the Bottom South part of India believe in another due to geographic ties. Aarti connects them together. This shared heritage also applies to the wide variety of festivals that are celebrated in India, and life cycle related festivals such as a wdding or childhood significant events.

Brasilian Festival

AGE: 20 

Date of performance: 04/29/2025

Occupation: Student 

Primary Language: English 

Title-   Carnival

Context- M shares with me a tie to her family heritage that she celebrates even though she doesn’t live in Brazil— Carnival. M’s mom is from Brazil, and M shares with me how they would celebrate— “We would watch it on tv because we weren’t in Brasil but we’d wear Brasil colors and usually eat the traditional foods like feijoada and coxinha.”

Analysis- In folklore, festivals are seen as cultural practices that exemplify traditional and communal elements of a community’s values, traditions and history. Carnival is a big festival in Brazil, celebrating Brazil’s diverse heritage and showcasing different folkloric elements through their extreme costumes, traditional dancing (samba), and the occasional storytelling. Carnival is an example of how culture and tradition are highlighted by a giant performance—a key element in identifying folklore.