Category Archives: Holidays

Holidays and holiday traditions

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.

3 Reyes Mago & Rosca de Reyes

Age: 20


Date of performance: 4/25/2025


Language: Spanish


Nationality: Mexican American


Occupation: Full-Time Student


Primary Language: English


Residence: California

Context:

My informant shared their experience with the celebration of “3 Reyes Magos,” or “Three Kings Day,” a tradition rooted in the biblical story of the Magi visiting the infant Jesus. Celebrated on January 6th during the Feast of the Epiphany, this holiday marks the end of the Christmas season. While the original story involves the kings bringing symbolic gifts such as gold, the modern tradition has adapted so that the Three Kings now bring presents to well-behaved children. Families typically wake up to find gifts left by the kings, much alike Christmas. One key tradition associated with the day that my informant shared, is the sharing of Rosca de Reyes aka, ‘The Kings Cake‘, a round, sweet bread with a hidden baby Jesus figurine inside. Finding this figure comes with the responsibility of hosting a future family party, a duty that applies even if the recipient is a child—placing the hosting obligation on the parent. This celebration blends religious meaning, family bonding, and festive customs that are passed down through generations.

Analysis:

Though distinctively different traditions, a similar meaning behind the Hispanic holiday is shared with my informant. I believe this holiday, shares a lot with the American traditions Christmas holds, so it acts like a second one for most. I’ve witnessed that sometimes it even hold more value than the traditional day of Christmas considering its the exact date that Jesus was supposedly born. I found it interesting how my informants background changed some of the traditions acted during this holiday and the meaning behind them. For example, as a Salvadorian, upon finding the hidden baby Jesus, the recipient makes tamales for the family. Making tamales is a heavy and arduous task that can take an entire day, which further amplifies the significance and value of this action and event.

Rouladen

Age: 60
Occupation: Computer Security
Language: English

 “Oma used to make Rouladen So it’s beef that’s hammered really thin and then inside of that you wrap bacon, pickles, mustard, and then I’m not sure if its soaked in wine or not. It might just be a gravy. And then its rolled up. And when it’s served, its served in gravy. And its really good if you like the ingredients. It’s a really soft meat when its cooked. And we would serve it with red cabbage, also with wine. And you’d usually have mashed potatoes with it too. Oh, and you could have optional dumplings instead of the mashed potatoes. Or I think we’d have it with dumplings and mashed potatoes. But that was more up in Canada at my grandmother’s house.

Context: “It might be for someone’s birthday, like if it was Opa’s birthday he might get Rue Laden. Or sometimes for holidays like Christmas, we’d have it instead of turkey or something. You will see German restaurants make it too, but not as good as Oma because she uses the right wine.   Also sometimes when Opa would say we hadn’t had it in a while, or when we had visitors over. It was a special dish”

 Informant describes this as a uniquely German dish.

Analysis: Although this dish is not extremely limited in its preparation, being made multiple times a year, the informant still regards it as a special meal reserved for celebrations and times outside the normal day to day. These can be life-cycle events like birthdays, or seasonal occasions such as certain holidays, but they are all significant in that they seem to call the family closer together. The role of the chef, the informant’s mother, is of incredible importance to the informant as her version surpasses restaurant offerings and is more ‘authentic’. The familial element and process of cooking this dish seems just as important as eating it. Furthermore, the informant seems to derive national identity from this dish. Having emigrated from Canada to the US and his father having emigrated from Germany, the informant feels this dish is representative of his heritage and that it relates him back to Germany even though he does not live there. 

Christmas present fakeout

Nationality: American
Age: 60
Occupation: Computer Security
Language: English

“The tradition was, we would have to go to the store to get batteries or milk or something and we were anticipating Santa coming. And we were like “oh no, we don’t want to miss Santa” because Santa gave presents the day before, on the 24th because we celebrated at home. And then Christmas day, we’d go to my dad’s parent’s house. Well, when we lived out that way. Or I guess now the way we do it is [informant’s family side] 24th and [informant’s spouse’s side] on the 25th. So we’re waiting for Santa Claus and then my mother would say “hey, we need batteries/milk/something”” so we’d all go out and when we came back Santa had visited and the tree was lit and presents were under the tree. As I grew up, it was me taking my siblings to the store. And so the story repeats.  

Context: “When I was little, for Christmas. At least since I was maybe four, until my siblings were in their teens.”

Informant does not tie this to national identity and wondered how their parents did it because informant didn’t believe in Santa.

“I don’t know if we did that with the relatives up north, I think it was just my family doing that. And I don’t remember my parents talking about doing it. I think we did it with the boys but I don’t know. And I don’t know if we’ll do it with the great granddaughter, once she’s cognizant. “

Analysis: This tradition acts as a way to prepare for a larger tradition, that of Santa bringing presents at Christmas. This variation places the gift giving earlier in the evening, not at midnight as some versions have or in the early morning, as it is imperative for a store to still be open. In order to preserve the magic of the gift giving, the magic of the evening is falsely broken. The parent says that they need to go to the store for something right away, leading the children to assume they have to stop the Christmas celebrations and will miss Santa. Of course, this serves as a decoy so that they can return to a magical Christmas-filled house and partake more fully in the festivities then. The idea of this ‘false exit’ is effective, and also allows the older children to keep participating past the age of their belief. They are able to become the one taking younger siblings to the store and therefore become a weaver of the magic themselves, taking a more active role and shifting their satisfaction towards continuing the tradition for younger children. This tradition can span several generations, as the informant mentions, and continuously invites improvisation and variation so that the children can be surprised and delighted by Santa’s visit. 

Ritual – Secret Santa + Gingerbread cookie making

Nationality: American
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

On Christmas Eve my informant and their family bake gingerbread cookies and doing Secret Santa

“Every every my family does Secret Santa on Christmas Eve. The youngest in the family says who they have first and then that person opens their gift and so on. While this is happening we eat the gingerbread cookies we made in the morning together. We use cookie cutters to make them into different shapes and decorate them however we want and each person gets to eat their own creations.”

This Christmas Eve tradition combines a ritual gift exchange with communal food preparation, both serving to reinforce family bonds, creativity, and shared identity. Secret Santa is a gift exchange that functions as a structured, participatory ritual that relies on the act of giving, surprise, and anonymity. In folklore studies gift-giving can be seen as a form of symbolic communication conveying affection, reinforcing social ties, and social obligation. The youngest in the family starting the gift-giving off adds an age-based hierarchy to the ritual, highlighting the importance of youth and continuity in my informant’s family. This ordered giving also introduces a ritual sequence that keeps everything organized and emotionally engaging. The shared activity of baking gingerbread cookies reflects a domestic ritual centered around a traditional way of preparing the food. The personalized decoration and use of cookie cutters makes the baking both creative and communal, promoting self-expression within the structured family framework. Eating the cookies during the gift exchange linked the two rituals together, adding multiple forms of participation to the cohesive festive tradition. The structure, baking in the morning then decorating then eating during Secret Santa, gives Christmas Eve a rhythm that separates this ritual from the everyday. Overall, this ritual tradition is a great example of how folklore functions in the modern family blending ritual and repetition with creativity to create a sense of shared identity and celebration. It’s a lived tradition that focuses on values like connection, generosity, and joy through shared acts.