Tag Archives: Holidays

Ring the Chapel Bell

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Athens, GA
Performance Date: 3/16/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, French, Hebrew

“Uhh…I guess we all know the..to…you ring the chapel bell after…Like after, um, a team wins or just like after something good happens to you like if you get an “A” on a test or something. Ummm.  Like after football games, if we win, there’s like an hour wait to go ring the bell. Ummm.” (I asked if she had rung the bell.) “Yes.  Well it’s a tradition for my like sorority family to go do it on big little reveal night, and we also do it on bid night.  And ummm. I have never done it after a football game just cause it’s too long.”

The informant attends the University of Georgia, and she loves football like most of her school, which is probably why the line is so long at the bell after a team win.  The bell allows everyone to take part in the joy of winning the football game.  The informant told me that the university talked about the ritual on the tours for prospective students, but it is also just something that everyone knows.  Ringing the chapel bell and knowing what that means is an initiation into the university community, and as she said, it has been adopted by her sorority as an initiation ritual for new members.  In addition to celebrating what good thing has happened to you, no matter how small, ringing the bell becomes common knowledge that helps the new members of a sorority or freshman at the university make the shift from being outsiders to insiders.

Hiding Presents on Chanukah

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Hotel Owner/Manager
Residence: Nashville, TN
Performance Date: 3/20/2013
Primary Language: English

On Chanukah, when we were young, my dad would hide the presents around the house for each night of the holiday.

He learned the tradition from his parents, and he chose to do it because it adds suspense to gift giving.  Also, there are eight days so it makes it more interesting.  He kept doing it because he thought that we really enjoyed it.  Whenever my mom would say that we didn’t need to do it, he would assert that it is a tradition and that we do it because it’s more fun when it is a tradition.

The tradition gives my family something to look back on and laugh about when we think of the holiday.  The informant, my father, remembered a time where we hid the presents and didn’t find them till two years later.  The ritual has become in grain, but because we do not come together for the holiday anymore, the ritual has stopped.

He hopes that we will continue the tradition if we have children and celebrate Chanukah, and he thinks that we will just because “it is something in our heads.”

Dia de Los Tres Reyes Magos

Nationality: Korean
Age: 23
Occupation: Marketing
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 24, 2013
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: Korean, English

“Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos is a huge holiday in Mexico celebrating the day the three kings visited Jesus with their gifts. It’s celebrated on January 6th and is basically the peak of the Christmas season. Because, in Mexico, the celebration extends to days like the Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos, Christmas season goes on forever. Children get gifts on this day, because the Three Kings came to Jesus bearing gifts for Him. This is also the day when people eat Rosca de Reyes. Rosca de Reyes is a dessert bread in the shape of a big oval and has bits of fruit on it. The people that make it hide a little statue of baby Jesus inside the bread somewhere. I think that this is to symbolize having to hide Jesus in a barn so King Herod couldn’t find him. Anyway, so the statue is hidden and the cake is cut up so everyone gets a piece. The person who finds the figurine in their piece is blessed, but they also have to throw a party for Día de la Candelaria, on February 2nd. So some people like finding the statue because it is a good sign, but others don’t because they don’t want to throw a party.”

Unlike the United States in which Christmas is the main holiday and the day that everyone looks forward to, my informant told me the the Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos if often the bigger holiday in Mexio. She remembered thinking that being a Mexican kid is awesome since they celebrate Christmas and receive gifts then, and about a week later they celebrate Reyes Magos so they get gifts again. Her family did not celebrate this second holiday as much, but kept with the tradition of Christmas as the one big holiday during the winter season, so she would often feel jealous of her friends on this day. She said she usually tried to go over to one of her friends’ houses to take part in the festivities that way.

I did not know that the day when the three wise kings arrived bringing gifts, was celebrated. To me it does make sense that this day would often be used for gift exchanges rather than Christmas, since if Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, it should be celebrating the beginning of his life, and not be about presents. I suppose it is part of showing gratitude and giving to others, as Jesus did, but since the wise kings actually gave gifts to the baby Jesus, it seems logical that part of the tradition for this holiday is gift giving. I find it interesting how different countries celebrate the same holiday, but put a twist on the holiday that is uniquely theirs. I think I would have enjoyed celebrating this holiday as well, as I look forward to the Christmas season, and this extends that season.

Remembrance Day

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 30
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Ontario, Canada
Performance Date: April 9, 2013
Primary Language: English

“In Canada, we have a holiday called Remembrance Day on November 11. It’s for remembering those who died in service for their country. We remember these brave men and women for their courage and devotion, even in the face of extreme hardship. For this holiday, we wear red poppies on our clothes for support. This tradition is supposed to come from the famous poem “In Flanders Fields” from World War 1, I think. I remember reading that poem in school. On this day, we usually attend different ceremonies and visit memorials. The most remembered wars for this day are the World Wars and the Korean War. I remember my friend mentioning that she really appreciates that her grandfather, who fought in the Korean War is honored by the Canadian government as a war veteran who fought well for his country. Especially since this war is often called the Forgotten War.  This day reminds us as to why we must work for peace every day of the year.”

The informant finds this holiday to be an especially important one, because she believes that it is essential to honor anyone who has allowed future generations to be able to live in piece. It is also important to her because some of her family members fought in wars, and it allows her to honor and remember them, and to see others honor and remember them. In our everyday life it can often be easy to forget such important things, so have a Remembrance Day is important to re-remember those who have allowed us to have peace.

Remembrance Day closely resembles Veterans Day, and even happens on the same date. I thought they might be identical things, but from researching it on the Internet, it seems as though Veterans Day is something unique to the United States whereas Remembrance Day is celebrated by many different countries of the world. Personally, for Veterans Day, I do not think I do anything special to commemorate those who have fought. Remembrance Day seems to be a bigger deal in Canada, with many national ceremonies happening. I think that the act of wearing red poppies is a nice sentiment, as it is a physical symbol of what he day is about.

The Afikomen: A Passover Tradition

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 17
Occupation: High school student, planning to major in physics or chemistry
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 15, 2012
Primary Language: English

“On a Passover seder, the adults hide the afikomen—a special piece of matzah [unleavened bread]—and the kids have to find it. (Usually, the adults hide it in really dumb places, like under a book.)  Our family, though, does this the other way around: the kids hide it, and the adults have to find it. I think this tradition comes from my Grandpa Ned’s side of the family.

“We always plan out our hiding places in advance, and try to make them good enough that the adults won’t be able to find the afikomen. Once, we opened up an old computer, put the afikomen inside, put the computer back together, and turned the computer on. My favorite hiding spot, however, was one I thought of last year: my friends and I opened up the smoke detector, took out all of the electrical equipment (so that the afikomen would fit in it), and put the afikomen there; meanwhile, we hid the electrical equipment somewhere else.

“When the adults were searching, one of them actually suggested looking inside the smoke detector. My dad, though, said that ‘there’s no way it could fit in there with all of the electrical equipment,’ because he didn’t think that we would take it out. Finally, when the adults gave up, I showed them the smoke detector electrical components to give them a hint. My dad had no idea what the equipment was, so I told him to hook it up to a battery. He said, ‘What is this? Am I going to get a secret coded message telling me where the afikomen is?’ When he connected a battery, the equipment made the sound of the smoke alarm, so he finally figured out where the afikomen was hidden.”

This tradition of hiding the afikomen has long been a part of the Jewish holiday of Passover, an eight-day festival that celebrates redemption from slavery in Egypt. The seder (a Hebrew word meaning ‘order’) is a ritual feast that families carry out in their homes at the start of Passover. Since a seder cannot end until the afikomen is eaten, hiding the afikomen has almost become a ritualized prank.

My informant feels that the afikomen tradition makes the holiday of Passover more meaningful and memorable for him personally, as it is one of the main reasons that he looks forward to Passover each year. He definitely intends to pass this tradition along to his children, stating that “I would definitely want them to come up with creative hiding places.”

The afikomen custom also reflects this holiday’s focus upon the younger generation. Seders customarily involve rituals in which children ask adults questions about the holiday; the Haggadah, a text that Jews read on Passover, even advises adults upon how to answer different sorts of questions from children. The afikomen ritual fits naturally into the seder, as it serves to keep children actively engaged with the holiday in the face of a long series of prayers.