Tag Archives: Christmas Eve

Mexican-American Christmas Eve

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

EXAMPLE:

ANALYSIS:

My informant tells me that despite her ethnicity, she does definitely not associate herself as being culturally Mexican. It is telling then that despite these claims, the part that she associates with the most in this tradition are the Mexican foods and treats that her family indulges in. Clearly tamales, Mexican chocolate, and the special breads do not make their rounds frequently, but when they do they are welcomed with open arms and mouths.

It is also a tradition that celebrates the liminal moments – the moments of transition. They open the gifts together at midnight on Christmas Eve, the moment when it exactly becomes Christmas. They celebrate that together. I also think it is interesting that they have the child transitioning to adulthood as the one who distributes the presents. It is a form of initiation and celebration for that person who is growing up. He or she is the center of attention for that moment.

Seven Fish Dinner

Nationality: Italian-American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles/Palo Alto
Performance Date: April 25, 2014
Primary Language: English

I gathered this piece from my friend who comes from a very Italian family. Her parents family’s are both from Naples, her mom’s side is from Mirabella and her dad’s side is from Benevento. Even though her parents weren’t born in Italy, Italian culture is still very important in their family, and keeping up traditions such as this Christmas Eve dinner are very important to her parents, especially her father.

“I come from a very Italian background. My paternal grandmother was born in Italy and then came here, so my father is first-generation. My mother’s grandparents were from Italy…so they come from a very traditional Italian background. And one tradition that we’ve always followed in my family is that on Christmas Eve you are supposed to have the “Seven Fish Dinner” which means that you should be having seven different types of fish for your Christmas Eve meal. Every year my family would invite all of our family and friends over and my dad would spend about two or three days slaving away in the kitchen to cook all these different things which included lobster, probably cooked multiple ways, clams, shrimp…scungilli salad, which is octopus salad, a type of fish which I am not remembering what it’s called…and other things that I can’t remember.”

Q: So is this something your parents got from their parents?

“Yeah, it’s an Italian tradition. My family is not the only one’s that ever done it or heard of it. I know my dad keeps a lot of his Italian heritage in memory of his grandparents who he spent a lot of time with….’This is what my grandparents did so this how we’re going to do’ kind of a thing”

Food folklore tends to revolve around family and family traditions, and this is no exception. The informant learned about this through participating in a family tradition, which was kept by her parents in order to honor their Italian grandparents. Participating in the tradition becomes a way to keep the tradition alive and maintain the culture.

The Annual Christmas Eve Dinner Party

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Houston, Texas
Performance Date: 3/18/13
Primary Language: English

Item:

“So every year, I have really strong memories, when I was young all the way to high school, of our annual, Christmas eve, party that my mom would always throw. It was always her. And we would always have family, friends, and neighbors over and it grew and grew and grew every year until by the time I was older, it would be about 50 or 60 people over at our house. And she had the same menu every year, she’d make the same food. And she, we would always have eggnog, always some kind of meat. It was usually roast beef I think, that she would carve. Uh, hmm, there was always a crab dish, there was always lobster rolls. Not like the kind, in the northeast like in Maine. I can’t really describe, exactly how they were, gosh I’m blanking out now. But um there’d always be a vegetable dip, there’d always be fruit, um and we’d always have dessert, lemon squares, brownies, that was common. So, yeah um it was the same, it was the same people year after year obviously more people came each year but it was the same crowd of people. Everyone dressed up, and I remember one of our neighbors was a doctor and he would bring his accordion over and he would play the accordion every year, it was funny. And unlike me, the more chaos and the more noise, the happier my mom would be, you know that’s not how I am. And I just remember being a little kid, all the kids would hang out together. One of the neighbors, he would, he would always go home and call our house and pretend he was Santa, and he’d say things like “ho ho ho,” and he’d be like “Rudolph be quiet” and stuff like that. And of course as kids we believed that it was Santa Claus, it wasn’t until later that were like ‘oh it’s just him.’ So everybody had someone to hang out with, and, that was pretty much our Christmas eve.”

Context:

The informant that I received this item from is actually my mother, and I had never heard about this tradition before. She grew up in Dallas, Texas.

Analysis:

As far as a Christmas eve tradition, my mother’s family tradition seems normal. Her account of this tradition becomes interesting, however, when looked at in light of the Christmas eve tradition that my family settled in to. Although she remembers her Christmas eve’s fondly, I see in my mother’s account of them a differentiation, a separation between herself and her mom. She mentioned in her account that “unlike me [her], the more chaos and the more noise, the happier my [her] mom would be.” The Christmas eve’s that I grew up with consisted of a nice dinner cooked by my parents that we would eat in the dining room. It was the only time of the year that we would sit down as a family and eat in the dining room; we would normally sit at the table in the kitchen. It was also always just my family, never any of our friends or relatives. That said, I now look at my Christmas eve’s as a vehicle for my mother to express her individuality, personality, and parenting style.

No meat on Christmas Eve

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 7, 2013
Primary Language: English

“We didn’t eat meat on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is fine, but not on Christmas Eve. So we’d eat, like, baccala, which is salted cod. And calamari and other fish and seafood.”

 

My informant is an Italian Catholic. Refraining from meat on Christmas Eve is one of many cultural traditions practiced by this group. There are certain traditional fish dishes prepared, including baccala. My informant told me that she doesn’t particularly like baccala, and neither does the rest of her family. However, they make and eat it every year because it is traditional to do so.

Christmas Eve Dinner (Danish-American)

Nationality: Danish-American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/19/13
Primary Language: English

The informant describes how his Danish family celebrates Christmas each year in San Francisco.  The informant details the Christmas Eve dinner and a game involving rice pudding and an almond at the end of the meal.  The informant explains that he learned this tradition from his Danish family and has partaken in the tradition every since he was a little kid.  The tradition of the dinner has sentimental value for him because he has done it for so long with his family.

The informant explains that his Danish-American family celebrates Christmas Eve in a distinct fashion.  The family always has a roasted duck for dinner and after eating the duck the family always eats a bowl of rice pudding, but plays a game along with the eating of the pudding.  The family places an almond into a large bowl of pudding and the goal of the game is to pass the bowl of pudding around with each participant taking one scoop of pudding until someone finds the almond.  The participant who finds the almond typically wins a prize.  Traditionally the prize was marzipan, but the informant explains they do not eat that anymore because it does not taste good.  The trick of the game is to do your best to keep it a secret if you have found the almond because you want to make your other family members continue to eat the pudding without them knowing the game is actually over.  The informant explains that he actually added a variation to the game by putting in two almonds into the pudding without letting the others know.

I find the Danish celebration interesting as it varies largely from the celebration in the United States.  There are apparent Danish adaptations to the celebration of Christmas as seen with the roasted duck meal and the rice pudding game with the almond.  I have never heard of either of these practices in traditional U.S. Christmas celebrations.  The games give possible deeper insight into the traditional food eaten within the Danish past and how they play games.