Tag Archives: christmas

Heiliger Abend

Nationality: German-American
Age: 53
Occupation: Chief Retail Sales and Bottler Operations Officer at Coca-Cola
Residence: Atlanta, Georgia
Performance Date: 3/1/19
Primary Language: German
Language: English

Main piece: In the informant’s family, they celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve rather than the normal American practice of opening presents Christmas morning. They call this Heiliger Abend, or Weihnachten, which translates to Holy Night. When a family’s children are young, all gifts from family members were exchanged during Heiliger Abend, while gifts from Santa (mainly gifts to the kids) are opened on Christmas morning. However, if the of the children grow up and therefore move away from the Santa myth, each present gets opened on Christmas Eve. During Heiliger Abend, pierogi and potato salad is served, and whole family gathers together to sing Christmas Carols (both in English and German).

Context: The informant (DB) is a first generation immigrant from Germany; her mother is from Silesia, Germany, and her father is from what was previously known as East Prussia, so she is fluent in both German and English. She was raised Christian but does not consider herself very religious. She grew up in Orlando, Florida, has two kids, and currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Our conversation took place while eating quesadillas for lunch in our home in Atlanta. DB said that the custom of Heiliger Abend originates from her German roots, but that she adapted the traditions to her modern, American family. DB has kept the tradition alive because, as a child, it took her a long time to realize that celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve was abnormal in the U.S – “it never occured to me that Christmas in the morning would be any fun anyway.” She feels very close to the rest of her family in Germany when she celebrates Heiliger Abend as well as her family in America, as the tradition feels intimate and unique. “As you get older, it isn’t even about the presents anymore – it’s about the experience.”   

Personal thoughts: DB does not perform some key traditional practices commonly associated with Heiliger Abend (i.e. placing a boot outside for Saint Nicholas on December 5th, attending a church service the morning of December 24th, ringing a bell to signal the arrival of presents), which perhaps speaks to the ways in which modernity causes individuals to shave down their traditions to make them more palatable or modern. However, DB has also added a tradition of her own that make her Heiliger Abend unique – Christmas Caroling, which is certainly not a simple or easy tradition to perform. Hence, maybe the informant is simply customizing traditions to her own liking rather than feeling forced to cut certain actions out; modernity can be used and viewed as a tool for evolution, rather than a weapon for deconstructing age-old traditions.

White Elephant

Nationality: Irish-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Athens, Georgia
Performance Date: 3/15/19
Primary Language: English

Main piece: In White Elephant, each family member buys a gift – some are perverted, some are not – and they all go into a random pile. Everyone picks a number that determines what order people pick their gifts in. The person with number one will be the first person to pick a gift, and the next person in line can choose whether to steal that gift or take their chances with a random pick from the pile. If somebody’s gift is stolen, they can choose another gift in the pile or steal from another player. This continues down the line, and everyone besides the first person will get a chance to choose a new gift or steal any previously-picked gifts when their turn comes, until the end.

Context: The informant is half Irish and half American. Her mother’s side of the family is originally from and still resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Her paternal extended family live in Sligo, Ireland. She grew up culturally Catholic, but she does not consider herself religious. Our conversation took place in February on my couch at home in Atlanta after she began recounting her recent trip to visit family in Ireland. BN believes that the game originated in the the Southeast, as she originally learned of the game through her mother’s family. She’s always remembered it because they play the game every Christmas without fail, and the outrageous or sometimes provocative gifts are always memorable. BN cites the time her grandmother received a vibrating hairbrush, an innuendo that was laughed at among the adults without fully exposing the younger family members to “adult things” – after all, it is just a hairbrush, and no one is willing to let the impressionable children in on the joke.  

Personal thoughts: Oftentimes, people put extensive money, time and consideration into the gifts they buy their loved ones; modern society has convinced us that monetary value is one of the sole factors of worth. White Elephant forces people out of their narrow mindsets for what constitutes a good gift for someone. Gifts should not always be about giving a valuable or sought-after item, and this simple game teaches individuals how to appreciate a gift they didn’t necessarily want or ask for. It is about presently enjoying your time with your family, laughing at the unexpected moments, and going into a situation free of expectations. Moreover, while innuendo is often used to cloak satire or criticism, BN’s family uses innuendo to poke fun at each other in a lighthearted way, in which everyone bonds by sharing the same embarrassment, a concept reminiscent of practical jokes at weddings.

Santa Mouse

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: JAG Military Lawyer
Residence: Arlington VA
Performance Date: 3/16/19
Primary Language: English

Abstract:

This piece is about a holiday legend of Santa Mouse who rides with Santa in his sleigh on Christmas Eve and leaves little presents in the tree if you believe in him.

Main Piece:

“So when I was a little girl we had a story my mom use to tell us at Christmas that there was a little mouse that would ride in the sleigh with Santa and he was called Santa Mouse. And Santa Mouse would leave you a little present at the top of the tree if you believed in him. And the way he would find out if you believed in him is if you put a white light at the top of the tree, so when we put all the lights on our tree every year, we had to make sure there was a white light at the top to alert Santa Mouse to leave his presents. On Christmas Eve he would climb up to the tree, with his little mouse body climbing up the tree, to leave presents for us – little tiny presents at the top of the Christmas tree.”

Context:

This subject learned this story as a child from her mother. She is from Buffalo New York and her mother’s side was German and her father’s side was Irish. She remembers this story because it was a tradition she and her family would follow every year. She passed it along to her children and there is even an authored story these days that she reads to her family now as part of the tradition now.

Interpretation:

I think this is a similar tradition to Elf on the Shelf. It seems to have started in a cute way to bring more celebration to the holiday season, though it is not certain when this tradition started. Today, like Elf on the Shelf, it seems to be commercialized with books and other products to be sold along with the tradition. The white light part of the tradition is interesting, because other people who participate in this tradition don’t always do that particular aspect of the story. In other versions, people must leave out crumbs of cookies for Santa Mouse, like leaving out carrots for the reindeer.

Citation for Santa Mouse Book:

Brown, Michael, and Elfrieda DeWitt. Santa Mouse. Sandy Creek, 2008.

Three Wise Men

Occupation: Student
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Context:

The informant recounts the different religious and cultural stories that he heard while growing up as a child.

In the transcript of our conversation, he is identified as S (storyteller) and I am identified as C (collector).

 

S: Do you have the thing of the three wise men? It’s a Catholic thing.

 

C: No… can you explain it?

 

S: Like you put your shoes out and then the three wise men from Jesus’ birth come and give you gifts

 

C: Oh.. is that it?

 

S: That’s pretty much it. Like parents put money in your shoes obviously instead of the three wise men. It usually happens around Christmas but I forget the exact date.

 

C: Oh so is this something that you or your family did?

 

S: Yeah. Well it’s a catholic thing. Popular in Spanish speaking countries.

 

 

Analysis:

Biblical stories are often told for the lessons they are able to impart on the listener, but also for entertainment. The tale of the Three Wise Men is one such story that encompasses many functions. The three men are figures of great status in society and they all see an unusual new star in the sky, and knew that it told of the birth of a special king in Israel. This marks the coming of Christ into the world and the spark of Christianity as it exists today. To welcome Jesus’ arrival, they presented him with gifts that hold symbolic meanings in Christianity. Gold was given as something that is associated with kings and the idea that Jesus was to be the King of other kings. The other two are Frankincense, a symbol used to show that people would worship Jesus and
Myrrh, a perfume that showed Christians of Jesus’ eventual suffering and death. The act of giving gifts is still something that we do til this day and it is curious to see if many base their tradition of gift giving to this tale in the Bible.

 

For another version, see: All About the Wise Men

https://www.whychristmas.com/story/wisemen.shtml

Cooper, James. “The Christmas Story – All About The Wise Men.” The History of The Christmas Story — Whychristmas?Com, www.whychristmas.com/story/wisemen.shtml.

Christmas Cookies

Main Piece

“At Christmastime we make these very specific Christmas tree cookies, they’re almond cookies and we make them with a cookie press which squishes out dough into the shape of a Christmas tree. My family makes just a ton of them, and the cookie press we use has been in the family a greater part of the century. The weird thing is, if you make them any other shape, they don’t seem to taste the same. Instead of making chocolate chip cookies and putting those out for Santa, we put out these.”

Background

Informant

Nationality:  American

Location: Connecticut

Language: English

When I asked the informant what they thought of the tradition, they responded with the following:

“The cookies are really damn good. We make them with my mom’s parents, and aunts

and uncles on that side of the family. My more extended family send cookies to each other, and those are the cookies that we send to other relatives…it’s a traditional sending…family recipe cookie.”  

Context

The informant and their family only make these cookies around Christmas Time, and only with their grandparents.

Notes

My family has our own cookie making traditions, and so it was nice to hear about another family’s traditions. The cookies we make are also almond cookies, but we make them into candy cane shapes and we don’t use a cookie press.