Tag Archives: Christmas Eve

Tradition

Age: 50
Occupation: Tax Accountant
Residence: Newberg, OR
Performance Date: April 19, 2008
Primary Language: English

Original script/version:

Chris said, “Since the first Christmas I can remember, my family has always had this special way of delivering stockings and organizing Christmas mornings. It starts with Santa delivering the stockings in the middle of the night and putting them on the end of everyone’s bed. That way, in the morning, we could wake up and our stockings would be right there. We then had a rule that we could not leave our rooms until my parents said so. We usually decided on Christmas Eve what time we could go to the living room.”

My dad said because he had six other siblings, this tradition might have been passed between large families as a simple method of crowd control. He is pretty sure his parents did not start it. Instead of having seven little kids running around and screaming on Christmas morning, this was a way of keeping all the children occupied and quiet until the adults were ready to start the morning festivities.

This tradition was carried out by my own parents, and I like. It is not the traditional: hang-the-stockings-over-the-fireplace, but it is still our tradition. Me and my sister would always wake up at like 5:30 and meet in one of our rooms to look in our stockings. I am not aware of any other families that use this same method of delivering stockings, but my father said that in Europe, there is more variety in how people handle stockings on Christmas.

Tradition

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pittsburg, PA
Performance Date: April 18, 2008
Primary Language: English

Original script/version:

“It has been a family tradition to open presents on Christmas Eve, and then open our Santa presents on Christmas day.”

Kate said she felt like this was definitely a European tradition that hailed from her mother’s side of the family (the Swiss side). She said her mother also practiced the same tradition while she was growing up.

There seem to be many, many varieties of celebrating Christmas and handling the unwrapping of presents. The reason for moving the present wrapping could be two fold. Some families may like to concentrate more on the religious aspect of Christmas during the day, so they more the more consumer oriented portion to the night before. It could also be a way to spread out the festivities.

Many of European wedding traditions mentioned in Alan Dundes International Folkoristics book had special rituals and celebrations on Christmas Eve.

For further reference in text, see:

Etzioni, Amitai. We Are What We Celebrate : Understanding Holidays and Rituals. New York: New York University Press, 2004. Pg. 135.

Tradition

Age: 50
Occupation: Tax Accountant
Residence: Newberg, OR
Performance Date: April 19, 2008
Primary Language: English

Tradition:

“Every Christmas eve, we eat crab as a family. Generally there are about 8 to 12 of us. So either me or your mom goes out and gets four-six Dungeness Crabs. We then clean them up, put all the legs in one bowl, and cut the bodies in half, and put them in another bowl. Then everyone gets half a body and a few legs. We use special tools to pick out the crab meat. When everyone has “cleaned” as much crab as they like, we all make crab salads. Mimi (my grandmother) makes Thousand Island dressing using mayonnaise, ketchup, and relish. Then you put the crab on your salad, put dressing over that, and have yourself a meal!”

My father carried on this tradition from his family. He has eaten crab for dinner for as long as he can remember. He doesn’t know why or how the special food of choice became crab. He moved around a lot, but never lived anywhere coastal. For much of his life he lived in southern California.

I think crab developed as more of a specialty food than anything else. My family has never eaten a lot of seafood, and the only time we ever eat crab is on Christmas Eve. I think this exclusivity makes it a specialty food, at least for our family.

I don’t think there is a lot of symbolic meaning behind the fact that it is crab. I think the reason why it became a tradition is because it is more of social activity. It takes 20 or 25 minutes to clean all the crab out of the body and legs, and creates a good social environment instead of just sitting down and eating.

Recipe – Sicily

Occupation: Student
Residence: Monterey, CA
Performance Date: March 23, 2008
Primary Language: English

Family Recipe/Meal Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Jessica Nicholas is from America, but much of her family is directly from Sicily.  During the Christmas Holiday they have a Sicilian, Catholic tradition of eating special meals both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  The meals are as follows:

Christmas Eve- Sicilian Ciappino Fish stew over Couscous

Christmas Day- Raviolis with red sauce, beef chunks, homemade meatballs

Jessica said this meal and its recipe were learned many generations ago back in Sicily.  She said the reason for the fish on Christmas Eve was because of their family’s history.  Her family back in Sicily were fisherman and ate a lot of fish, and saved the expensive meat for special holidays.  The combination of eating fish and meat on these two days brings together the sense of identity and the sense of a special occasion.  I asked her who prepares the meals and she immediately told me her mother and her grandmother (Nanie).  This seemed to be something that the women in the family do each Christmas, so I asked her if she is learning the recipes and plans to prepare it for her family in the future.  She told me, “possibly, I definitely try to help and learn their secrets, but it’s a lot of work it really depends on where I live because there’s no point in making the Ciappino if I don’t live by a fresh fish source. We literally go to the pier where the fisherman are coming in from their boats and buy straight from them”. This brought up the fact that people go through a lot of effort to maintain tradition and a sense of identity.  Jessica told me this meal has been made only one time on a separate occasion. “We’ve only made Ciappino once on a non-holiday in all of my years and that was because it was in the summer and we went fishing and my older sister was in town and wanted some of mama’s cooking”.  She said her mother made it so her sister could feel the sensation of being home for Christmas again.  Jessica also noted that the meal is not just important because of the taste.  She said it is the feeling of connecting with family that really makes it important. Also, seeing her Grandma and her older relatives makes her recognize the need to continue this tradition so her children and grandchildren will know their roots.

My analysis of the meal is very similar to that of Jessica’s.  I realize where she is coming from when she talks about how this connects her with family and her Sicilian heritage.  I also agree that preparing the meal is hard work, which is why she is hesitant about passing it on to her family.  I have a feeling she will feel differently as she grows older and has a family, because the hard work only comes once a year.  That hard work then connects your family with itself and it’s past forever.  The only difference in opinion is why they might have meat on Christmas.  This meat symbolizes the specialty of the occasion but also expresses the want for a better life.  Her family were fisherman and the prospect of having meat at the end of the year on Christmas could symbolize the expectations for a rich Christmas and New Year.

Holiday Tradition – Mexican

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 46
Occupation: Dental Assistant
Residence: Tijuana, Mexica
Performance Date: April 15, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

On Christmas Eve, Blanca, her sisters and her mom get together to prepare dinner. The menu is standard and always includes masa (batter), husks, chicken, potatoes, meat with red sauce, pineapple, raisins, and cheeses. Her mother always prepares the sauce in advance which she refers to as salsa. The sauce is a particular one her mother’s mother had devised and it is only made once a year. The special sauce is known as “Salsa Michoacana” because this is where the family is from. It was passed on from her grandmother and has stayed as a tradition to eat every Christmas Eve. The fillings are pre-cooked and everything is laid out on a long table. Loud music is put on, everyone puts on their aprons, and all they take a spot around the table forming an assembly line. One person would fill the husks, then pass it on to the next who folds it, and the last person ties it. The assembled husks get placed in different containers and get steamed in different pots depending on the filling used.

While the food is cooking and the kitchen cleaned up, the family relaxes while playing “Loteria” which is equivalent to Bingo except the cards have pictures not numbers. Some common pictures on the cards are of “el boracho” (the drunken man), “la palma” (the palm tree), “la estrella” (the star), “el sol” (the sun), and “el botella” (the bottle). A deck of cards is turned and little stories are made to depict little stories of the card turned over. Beans are used to cover the card and when the card is filled one yells “Loteria”.

This time before Christmas represents a time for family and tradition to Blanca. Regardless of the directions that her family members have taken that year, the Christmas preparation sparks a time for togetherness and family.

Blanca’s family celebration seems to represent a time where not only present family is recognized but also a commemoration of family members who have passed and an acknowledgment of tradition and culture. This is implied through various features of Blanca’s story. Firstly, the special salsa that is made for the event is named in remembrance of the location that the family is from. Secondly, the same exact recipe is repeated each year, with each person assigned a different task. Not only does it reinforce the necessity of each family member in the creation of the Christmas Eve celebration but also emphasizes the presence of tradition within Blanca’s family.

The card game emphasizes the Mexican influence on Blanca’s family. The game “Loteria” is one that is in their native tongue and slightly adapted to reflect the Mexican culture. Playing the card game is useful for the purpose of recreation and fun but also a time for family to rest collectively in addition to all the time that goes into the preparation of the event.