Tag Archives: christmas

Tradition

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: March 2007
Primary Language: English

My informant related a tradition that runs in her family every time Christmastime comes around. When she was very young, she, her mother, and her sister all went shopping together at a department store. There, they were all amazed as the beautiful decorations. They wanted to bring back a bit of the splendor so her mother bought them a Christmas diorama. The diorama came with fake snow, a church, a schoolhouse, a house, and a man and a woman. It became a tradition to add a new piece every year during Christmas.

My informant says that this tradition brings together her and her family. Because everyone is so busy during the rest of the school year (she has two older siblings, but who were in college well before she was), the diorama gives all of them an “excuse” to spend a lot of time together. They spend several weeks before Christmas shopping together and searching for a unique piece to add to their diorama. The diorama is only shown in the house during Christmastime, and it sits on her mantel in her living room. She says that every time she or the rest of her family looks at it, they remember all of the Christmases they have spent together since many years ago.

My informant says that this tradition might have been brought on by something her grandmother did. Her grandmother had a quilt that she made after she married her grandfather. Each year, her grandmother would add on another piece of fabric from a special item that would remind her of times she spent with her family. My informant feels that her mother based the diorama idea on her own mother’s tradition.

Ritual – Arizona

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

You must put up your Christmas lights and decorations Thanksgiving weekend and they must be taken down New Years weekend.

Notes:

The subject’s street is known as “Christmas Street” to the city and is a stop on the Phoenix Light Tour during the holidays for tourists. It received this name because everyone on the street goes all out to decorate for the holiday season. Simple strands of Christmas lights are not accepted, his street has mini ferris wheels, a Candyland-themed house, a Disney character themed house, and many more. The neighborhood is very close knit and takes immense pride in celebrating the holiday season together and with the community. The Christmas Street ritual is taken very seriously, with the neighbors often giving free sets of Christmas lights to the new neighbors , as well as showing them a video of the street so they know what they are getting themselves into. The subject feels that the ritual of when to put up and when to take down the lights came to be after a bunch of neighbors got together to talk about the holidays. The Christmas street phenomenon was born then and there. He says that this ritual is even expected of the visitors, as crowds of people start to walk the street the day after thanksgiving and are disappointed when the entire street is not at its known magnificence.

I think that this ritual reflects making the Christmas season as long as possible, so as soon as thanksgiving is done, the lights go up and are not taken down until the next big holiday, New Years.  This custom is followed by a lot of people, since Christmas has transformed into a season, with holiday music playing on the radio at this time and Christmas decorations up in the malls around this time as well. I think its interesting the way American culture has transformed this holiday into a plethora of festivities, this subject’s street is a perfect example. Pictures of the street are attached.

The subject’s home:

The subject’s neighbor’s home:

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.

Recipe – Latvian

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pittsburg, PA
Performance Date: April 18, 2008
Primary Language: English

Original script/version:

“Latvians make these intense gingerbread cookies called Piparkuks for Christmas.  They are very thin and are not chewy at all like regular gingerbread.

Gingerbread cookies: Piparkuks are just as common in Latvian tradition as whatever Christmas cookie you can think of for Americans.  It is an incredibly time consuming process and involves a lot of detail and patience.  The Latvian Church in Willimantic used to make them by the thousands at Christmastime(this is no exaggeration; the cookies are very small and the dough very thin so a little goes a long way).  Here’s the recipe:”

3 sticks butter

½ cup oil

1 ¼ cup molasses

¾ cup honey

1 1/3 cup sugar

¾ cup brown sugar

9 ½ cups flour

2 eggs

2 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

4 t. cinnamon

4 t. ginger

1 ½ t. pepper

2 t. cloves

2 t. nutmeg

3 t. cardamom

5 t. coriander

3 t. lemon peel

3 t. orange peel

Mix butter, oil and sugars.  Heat to boil, add spices and cool.  When cool add eggs one at a time.  Mix baking powder, soda, and flour.  Add to wet ingredients, mix well.  The dough can be kept for weeks in the refrigerator.  Roll very thin and cut with small cookie cutters.  If the dough gets sticky, chill again.  Brush with beaten egg yolk and decorate with bits of almonds, if desired.  Bake 350-375 degrees for 10 minutes or less.

“They are very dense and VERY spiced.  I have very vivid memories of sitting in the kitchen in the basement of the Latvian church and watching like 15 old Latvian ladies chat away in Latvian as they are rolling this dough and making these delicate cookies.  Usually they are topped with an almond sliver, but for the kids they used to add on those tiny little colored sprinkle/balls.  (You know, not the jimmies, but the tiny little dots.)” -Kate