Category Archives: Holidays

Holidays and holiday traditions

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.

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.