Tag Archives: christmas

Reindeer Chow: Martha Stewart’s Fakelore becomes Folklore

Nationality: Italian American
Age: 21
Occupation: Screenwriter
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/09/19
Primary Language: English

Folk Tradition:

“I don’t know where my mom got this and it’s pretty vague. But my mom used to make reindeer chow. I totally bought into it when I was a kid. It was basically she would make this, and I would always help my mom with this, but we would make bowls of just oatmeal (dry oatmeal), glitter, and I think rainbow sprinkles? And then we put it outside our front door Christmas eve. This was in addition to milk and cookies for Santa. I would go to bed early and I’d wake up the next morning and it would all be gone. And of course my stupid fucking kid brain would be like, ‘They came to eat it! My parents can’t eat oatmeal and dry glitter they’d die!’ And then I found it on a Martha Stewart website reposted from some Etsy thing it’s everywhere. I don’t know where she found it or if it’s that old.”

Context:

“Christmas time. This definitely started just with our [nuclear] family, but I think she heard about it from other people she’s friends with. Cause people went all out for Christmas where I’m from even though they’re all Jewish. Cause it’s fashionable. My mom is Jewish. We also celebrate Hanukkah but only for the presents…She just wanted us to celebrate Christmas cause she wanted to give us presents. I love that my mom put so much effort to make sure we just really had a special Christmas.” 

Informant Background:

The informant is 21, from Los Angeles. His dad is Catholic and his mother is Jewish. His mother started this tradition in their family and he said he intends to recreate it for his children.

My Analysis:

I think this piece is unique because it is an example of someone from outside the religious community trying to adopt the folk practice of that religion. I grew up Christian and never knew of this practice, so it is my inclination to assume that it started as fakelore probably created by crafting websites to sell more glitter around the holidays. However, since the informant said he found it on multiple websites and portals as an adult, many people around the U.S. at least appear to be practicing this new holiday tradition. This is similar to the “elf on the shelf” concept, which is fakelore turned folklore. Now that a new wave of children have been raised with this custom, they will pass it on to their children. The descent of practice is what makes it genuine tradition, regardless of how it began.

 

German Holiday Foods

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

Abstract:

This piece is about specific German foods, specifically baked goods, that are eaten at Christmas or other special occasions.

Main Piece:

“My maternal grandmother came from Germany, first generation, so her parents came from Germany. So she had a lot of German traditions, but the ones I remember the most about her had to do with baking and very special baked goods and pastries for certain occasions. She made something called a stollen every Christmas morning she would make it fresh and everyone had to have their stollen before they could open their presents. When there were special occasions, like when we had lots of family around she would make lebkuchen and she even had a special pan for it. It was a pastry with fruit on the top and it was amazing. But she always insisted certain pastries for certain occasions.”

Context:

This subject is an adult woman who remembers her grandmother and the traditions from her German heritage she brought to the holidays. The subject has German ancestry that would be highlighted through foods at the Christmas time or when there were large family gatherings. She learned these foods from her grandmother. Though she does not continue the tradition exactly, she makes cinnamon buns that her family must eat before opening presents these days.

Interpretation:

These kinds of foods remind me of baked goods traditions like having cake on your birthday or a wedding cake. The idea that there are certain pastries for certain occasions rings true with those kinds of baked goods as well. I think it is nice that the subject also tries to keep the tradition alive in her own way by making cinnamon buns. This kind of shows the evolution from one kind of cultural food through the change of culture the subject is in. As a person that does not identify as German, the subject makes the tradition “her own” in a way, while still holding on to her heritage.

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.