Tag Archives: Christmas Eve

Ritual

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 50
Occupation: Instructor
Residence: Chandler, AZ
Performance Date: March 27, 2007
Primary Language: English

“The And Game”—a game on Christmas Eve where everyone gets in a circle and passes little gifts around every time the word “and” is mentioned from the book The Night Before Christmas

Notes:

The informant told me that every Christmas Eve, his family gets together with his wife’s side of the family at one of the relative’s house. After they eat dinner, but before they open presents they play what they call “The And Game.” Basically the host of the party buys an array of little gifts (like $5 dollar Best Buy gift certificates or boxes of chocolate) and wraps them up and gives one to each individual. They sit in a circle and pass the gifts around every time the word “and” is mentioned in the story The Night Before Christmas. One of the kids reads the story, making sure to emphasize each and, so that the passing goes at the right pace. There are enough “ands” in the story so that you don’t end up with the original gift you started with. He mentioned that they have been doing it for over 20 years now, and that he isn’t sure how it exactly started, but that every year they would read the book, and the game evolved out of it. He also said that it has become a pretty funny game because the children are getting older and the men like to try and unwrap the gifts before the game is over, so that you can peek at the gift. The men were unwrapping the gifts so much, that the informant’s wife decided to double wrap the and gifts one year, with packaging paper (virtually un-breakable) as the first layer and wrapping paper on top. When they attempted to unwrap the gifts, all they saw was brown paper.

I think that this ritual represents the many different customs people have around the holidays. The holiday season is full of different traditions families participate in, whether it be dealing with presents, Christmas decorations, or Christmas dinner. I think this particular ritual was born out of a tradition of reading the book, but when people got bored of the book or little kids got antsy to open the presents, the family adapted the tradition to a more interactive experience while keeping the tradition alive. This custom seems unique, as there is no real tie to it in anything online, however it does have similar elements to Hot Potato, in which a hot potato is passed around the group with the last person holding the potato when the music is turned off being out of the game.

Tradition – Peru

Nationality: Peruvian
Age: 55
Occupation: Laboratory Technician
Residence: Torrance, CA
Performance Date: MArch 24, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“En todas las casas donde habian ninos, el 24 de Diciembre en la noche antes de que se vayan a dormir ponian sus zapatos en la ventana o en el balcon para que PAPA NOEL les deje sus regalos. Al dia siguiente los ninos se levantaban muy temprano y iban muy contentos a abrir y ver sus regalos y comenzar el DIA DE NAVIDAD jugando con todos sus juguetes nuevos.”

“In all the houses where they were kids, the 24 of December at night before they are going to sleep, they put their shoes in the window or the balcony so that POPE NOEL will leave gifts on top of them. The following day the kids would rise very early, excited to open their gifts and to begin the DAY of CHRISTMAS by playing with all their new toys.”

Analysis:

Norma never had a Christmas tree growing up. In fact, the first Christmas tree she purchased was years after she came to America. It was during her first year of her marriage (to an American) that she put presents under a Christmas tree. She quickly reminded me that there were never any trees in Peru because December was summer. No Christmas trees grew in summer. This is the reason they put their shoes out. However, this ritual is limited to children ages five years and below since “they’re the really innocent ones and have not discovered that there is no Santa.” Children older five get their presents with the adults after midnight on Christmas Eve.

This is one of many variation of present giving around this time. In Greece, people look under their beds for presents. Yet, one aspect they all share, even with the American culture, is that the young children are always eager to wake up early and play with their new toys.

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.