Tag Archives: christmas

Christmas Routine

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English

So – Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays, not gonna lie. When I was a kid it was because of the presents, because I’m a very materialistic person. The family tradition was always – always the same. Christmas Eve what would happen is we’d go over to my grandmother’s house on my mother’s side. And meet with her family have have a very nice dinner. And then just open presents! And that was always the most fun because I have two aunts who always went all out and bought very expensive things, and my brothers and I were just thrilled. But then the better part and more heartwarming part always came the next morning because what would happen is my brothers and I would wake up at 6 am and to this day whenever I’m home I’m very adamant about us getting up at 6 am, even when my brothers go “Ahh I didn’t get enough sleep last night!” I’m like, “No, it’s happening.” We’d get up at 6 am, say “Hey mom and dad we’re up,” and while my brothers and I wait upstairs in our bedroom, my dad would go downstairs, turn on the Christmas tree lights, turn on Christmas music, just create a perfect holiday atmosphere. Then he’d turn on the camera and say “Ok boys, you can come on down,” and all of the videos we have of Christmas start out the same way – it’s our reaction shot of walking down the stairs and seeing the Christmas tree, and the presents underneath.

What else constitutes the ‘holiday atmosphere”?

I mean some – he usually wore a Santa hat, let’s see – I mean what comes to mind is just the Christmas tree, in that we have a – the theme of our Christmas tree is always the same, it’s toy based. So we have all sorts of toys hanging around the tree. There was a very specific – if you remember the dog Spot when you were really little –

See Spot Run.

Yeah, exactly. He was a little plush figure we’d put on the tree, and my brother Kevin was always just the biggest fan of Spot. And would sometimes just take him off the tree and hug him and cuddle with him, which was adorable. Besides that though, the breakfast afterwards was always delicious. French toast soaked in egg nog – perfect holiday breakfast. And then later that evening we’d go to my aunt’s house on my dad’s side. It was very nice – it was kind of the most formal part of the day because we had to be – my aunt is slightly strict, so we had to be very prim and proper. But it was still nice, we got to hang out with my aunt and my grandma, and we just got to share stories, what sort of presents we got – though they usually weren’t happy if they were related to video games in any way. Because we needed to be active and so on. That was pretty much the holiday.

Do you still partake in the holiday in this particular fashion?

Absolutely I do. I mean things have changed, Christmas Eve we used to go –

My brother’s kind of indifferent these days to Spot. But my grandma moved out of her old house so now we have Christmas at my house, which is very nice because there’ a lot less driving involved on Christmas eve. And then we kind of had a falling out with my aunt on my dad’s side, so now we just have a nice Christmas dinner at home alone. But that general scenario comes to mind.

You said the area you come from is a pretty Jewish area. Have you ever invited Jewish friends to come and celebrate with you?

No, unfortunately not. My parents were always pretty adamant that especially around the holidays it’s family time, so even recently my parents – well, this is more New Years, where there’ “Come on guys, let’s stay home and do family things” and I’m like “we have friends now, who drink and are fun.” So that’s – yeah, that’s pretty much what happens.”

So it’s pretty family-centric. Are there any community-wide things you would do? Or is it JUST family.

Pretty much just family.

Is that – does any of this – come from stuff that your parents did before?

A little bit, I mean yeah. On my mom’s side they would always celebrate Christmas the night before. Because they had a Catholic mass that day. That evening. And then I guess they’d come home early in the morning and open presents then. As for my dad, yeah – it was pretty much the exact scenario that my brothers and I experienced, where they’d get – they’d have their dad set everything up, create that atmosphere and all of them would come outside, open presents, and it was fun. But imagine it more 50’s style.

 

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Very very family-oriented and generationally defined – see the tradition being essentially the same as that of the informants parents (mashed together) and just being passed onward.

Tamales and Mashed Potatoes

Nationality: White
Age: 53
Occupation: Admissions for University of Southern California
Residence: Huntington Beach, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/14
Primary Language: English

Tamales and Mashed Potatoes

Personal Background:

My mom works in admissions for a university. She grew up in Palos Verdes, California where her father was a dentist known throughout her entire community. She now lives in Huntington Beach with her family.

Tradition:

Growing up, it seemed completely normal for me to have mashed potatoes and tamales every Christmas, until I realized other people did not do this. So I decided to ask my mom why we did this odd mix of food. What happened is that the mashed potatoes represent her family who is Caucasian, while the tamales represent my dad’s family who is Mexican.

My mom got her recipe for the mashed potatoes from her mother, and it is known in the family as one of the best dishes on Christmas. She makes it for both her side of the family, as well as for my dad’s side of the family. The tamales are also with both sides of the family, but those are from a local restaurant, not hand made. Nothing we make has much religious meaning to it, but has a connection to the past.

To my mom, this disjointed menu is a way to bring the families together. It is a change in tradition for both of my parents, but my mom loves that they were able to make new traditions by still keeping some of their old ones. It has made for a different Christmas for both sides of the family, but part of becoming a new family is creating new traditions.

Analysis:

What makes this a tradition is because it is something that is actually happening and being completed. Every year, this family is physically making and eating this food.

To me, it has become a ritual with when the potatoes are made, and how they are made. Before my mom even starts making the potatoes, my sister and I sit and peel around 20, or more, potatoes. We have been doing it this way since my sister and I have been old enough to be trusted with the potato peelers. It is how the Mexican side of my family is able to have a really nice Christmas with the Caucasian side.

Polish-Catholic religious rituals

Nationality: Polish-American
Age: 24
Occupation: Graduate student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/20/2014
Primary Language: English

INFO:
Receive blessed chalk from priest. Above each doorway to your house, write the initials of the three Wise Men: Balthasar, Caspar, Melchior. Then you light some incense by those doors. For his family, Christmas didn’t end until the Epiphany, that’s when the Wise Men find Jesus, which was January 6th.

For Christmas and Easter, you exchange an oplatek (a more synthetic-feeling communion wafer). You’d take a piece from a plate and then go around to each of your family members and break off a piece of their’s yourself and take it, and then they’d take a piece of your’s, and you’d all wish each other well. After everybody’s exchanged and had a piece with everybody else, you eat it.

BACKGROUND:
The informant participated in these rituals growing up and still participates in them now, usually in family-based groups of six or seven people, all Polish-Catholic.

CONTEXT:
The informant shared this with me in conversation.

ANALYSIS:
The informant isn’t particularly religious now, so it’s interesting to me that he still participates in these deeply religious ceremonies in the presence of family. Additionally, though I’ve heard of the practice of taking communion wafers, I didn’t realize that there could be regional/event-based differences in the supposedly universal, standardized practice.

Christmas Stockings

Nationality: USA
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/16/14
Primary Language: English

Story

This informant is a friend of mine from back home who happened to be in town for a visit a few weeks.  I started by asking him if he had any family traditions that may have been in the family for a while.  After a bit of thinking he mentioned his Christmas stockings that his grandma had made for him and his brother, which I then realized I had seen before.  He said dating back far in the past (he didn’t know the origin) the grandmothers on his mother’s side of the family have always sewed the Christmas stockings.  Each stocking is sewed with items chosen by each respective grandmother for specific reason.  Some items represent past events and some hopeful mementos for the future.  He happened to be born in Germany when his parents lived there for a short three years early in their marriage, so there is a Beer stein on his stocking.  There is also a tennis racket, basketball, and soccer ball signifying his (hopefully) future success in sports.  Each stocking is about 18-20 inches tall and all red with a white top.  He said the stocking has become somewhat of a family superstition and they believe it has influence on the child’s future when it’s sewed.

 

Analysis: After listening to my informant’s story it was clear to me the significance of Christmas and religion in their family’s life and history.  It wasn’t clear whether or not the stockings were initially intended to be “fortune telling” (for lack of a better word) because my informant didn’t know how the tradition started, but it was interesting to me that such an important superstition ended up in the hands of a matriarch in such a patriarchal society.

Christmas Sausage

Nationality: Swedish-Polish
Age: 60
Occupation: IT Manager
Residence: Washington, DC
Performance Date: April 29, 2014
Primary Language: English

My mother and aunt, when I was a kid, would make sausage at Christmas time. My mother would hang the sausage in her and my father’s bedroom for days and the smell would permeate the house. I asked my mother one day about the recipe and why she made it every year, as well as why she stopped when I was in middle school. Turns out that this was a dish that her mother, who was Swedish, would make around Christmastime. She did not know if there was any sort of name for it, so she and my aunt just called it “Christmas Sausage.” And when grandma got to old to make it, my mother and aunt began to make it every year. The reason that my mother hung the sausage in her bedroom was that it was one of the coolest rooms in the apartment that time of year, as a window was usually left open and the radiator turned off. Why my parents did that, I don’t know.As for why my mother and aunt stopped the tradition, wel, that’s because when my grandma died when I was in middle school, my mother and aunt stopped making the sausages, probably because it reminded them of their mother, and the grief was too fresh. My mother believes that this is a traditional Swedish dish, as “hanging raw meat out at ‘room temperature’ seems like the kind of thing you would only do in a cold climate.”

Recipe:

Cook 1 pound of barley with 1 chopped onion and beef broth
Add salt and pepper to taste.
When fully cooked, cool completely.
Mix the barley with 1 pound raw ground beef and 2 pounds raw ground pork.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Stuff into hog casings.
Hang at room temperature for 3 to 5 days.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.