(First published in Global eBiz Tips in December 2001 -- Additional Notes made while reprinted in Small World Ezine on 20 December 2002)
In Thailand we celebrate all the occasions (Christmas,
Thai New Year, Chinese New Year, etc.) And after asking
around I found similarity in India and China -- No conflicts.
In the Philippines, Christmas celebrations start since
late October. See article "My Last Christmas"
Subscriber Priya from India is visiting a beach with her
family (she's Catholic, her husband's Hindu). Roshmi
(India), a Hindu, is also partying. And here's what our new
friend, Josh (Nepal), wrote:
"I find, for most of the Asian countries, Christmas is just
colorful event like, bright Christmas Trees, Santa Claus
with presents, departments stores decorated with colorful
items, song, dance and booze.. In Nepal, till 7 years back
it was difficult to find a Christmas card. Now it is
different, big hotels and discos advertise for dance and
dinner and door prizes and department stores are full of
Christmas items. So for most of the Nepalese Christmas is a
time for merry making, lot of dance and booze.
"We, a handful of Catholics (5 thousand out of 22 million
population) celebrate it in a different ways. We believe,
that if Jesus is God then we have to find him in our
context. So we make cribs in Nepalese style, even the
statues of Jesus, Mary, baby Jesus, angels, shepherds are in
Nepalese faces wearing Nepalese dress. I am a member of a
small group called Christian Workers Movement, we give our
voluntary service to fight against Child Labour and Migrant
Labour. Every year we celebrate Christmas with street
children. We organize games and sports for them and give
them small presents. When I see smile in their faces, I find
baby Jesus smiling. It is so fulfilling.
"My Christmas wish to all of you is that may the season
bring peace, joy in your hearts and may your lives be more
meaningful to you and all those who come in contact with
you. May you be an instrument of World Peace."
And Josh wrote this while he was telling us that there was
a civil war in Nepal. Don't we love him?
In America, How's Christmas?
We also received some messages from subscribers and friends from the States.
Here's from Char: "In Minnesota, We cut down a 6 foot pine
tree, (or in my case, get out the artificial wire tree) drag
it into the house, adorn it with lines of lights that are
twinkly, tinsel, hang home made ornaments, top with a star
or angel, hang Mistletoe over doorways (two standing below
must kiss), wrap presents, write "from Santa Claus", play
Christmas Carols, go caroling in the streets in groups
singing Christmas Songs (Silent Night, Jingle Bells, etc.),
the outsides of the houses are adorned in lights, holly is
every where, spray frosty stuff on your windows, give away
"candy canes" (mint, or fruit flavored), eat a big Christmas
Dinner complete with Turkey or Ham, Cranberry, mashed
potatoes and gravy, stuffing, olives, pickles, buns, corn,
apple pie, pumpkin pie, cherry pie, fruit salads, jello,
(everyone brings a dish to pass), fudge, nuts (bowl full
with cracker: walnuts, pecans, filberts, hazelnuts, etc),
put up a big pine bough wreath on the outside of the house,
spray pine-scented spray, then let the kids make a huge mess
in a room with the paper and toys and drink wine and beer
and warm apple cider with cinnamon."
And Lonny: "Christmas morning, all the little tykes in the
nieghborhood ( some in their twenties and thirties) come
outside and start showing off, parading around, and sharing
their newly gained loot, well, the expressions on their
faces just sort of washes all the other yuch off.
"In my house we normally do the stereotypical Christmas
scene. My wife vetoed the idea this year though. You see, it
starts with a trip out to a "reprod" unit. For those
unfamiliar with the term, a reprod or reproducing unit is an
area that a timber company has clearcut at some point in the
past and then replanted little trees that will hopefully
grow into bigger trees. So, in the past, the tradition has
been that we all pile into my battered old Dodge pickup,
drive out into the woods, to a reprod unit, where, in theory
at least, one will find a horter, well shaped Christmas
tree.
"That is the theory. But, did you know, that a tree in the
woods looks a whole lot smaller than a tree in the house?
Last year, when we got the tree, my friend Rod and I,
wrapped the limbs with rope and bundled the tree prior to
cutting it down; big mistake. You see, in an effort to
expediate matters, I pulled the tip over and we bound it
right with the rest of the tree. Then we dutifully cut the
tree to the desired eight foot length, and headed proudly
for home. We got back into town, wrasled the tree into the
livingroom, and then the tree stand.
"Did I mention that we had doubled over the top of the tree?
about three feet worth. Well let me tell you, a tree grows
wider at the bottom, and the closer to the bottom you get,
the wider the limbs spread, so I calculated the distance
from our picture window, to the tree stand, ased on my
recollection of its girth in the upper six feet, while in
fact I was emplaceing the full eleven feet. Right about the
time I got the tree where I thought I wanted it, our eighty
five year old nieghbor Edna, came over and stood right at
the window, as she will often do when we are up to something
new and unique. I cut the rope bindings of the tree and
those limbs just naturally went all helter skelter;
including through the picture window.
"I watched in horror while a particular limb on the lower
row just sort of gracefully fell through the opening where
the window had been, and the slender twigs at the end parted
around Edna's head.
"Of course, in typical Edna manner, she just looked right at
me and said " I think the trees too big."
Aren't Char and Lonny having a great time? They also
reminded me of National Lampoon's Christmas when Chevy Chess tried his best to set all the decoratives into places. The
tree was too big it broke the ceiling and windows. And when
he put too many bulbs when he turned them on the whole
neighborhood got black-out.
Don't we love them all?
It's the Family Gathering Time, perhaps too commercialized:
Subscriber Sue's in Georgia told us that "Typically,
Christmas is celebrated with family gatherings, lots of
house decorations, carols on the stereo, decorating the
tree, wrapping presents and cooking galore. Years ago when
my girls were young we used to go carolling around the
neighborhood. To this day, I NEVER miss the showing(s) of
"It's A Wonderful Life", "A Christmas Carol" and "White
Christmas". Wonderful Movies!
"While not a regular churchgoer like in years past there is
always reflection, however, about what the day really
celebrates: the birth of Christ. In my opinion, Christmas is
probably Numero Ono of holidays in the U. S."
Subscriber Don (NC) "My whole family celebrates Christmas by exchanging presents and all gathering at my daughter's house (when my wife was living, it was held at our house) for a huge meal. My daughter does most of the cooking but most others bring a dish that they have prepared. This lasts from noon till whenever. Although we all (except for a daughter that lives in New Mexico - about 2000 miles from my home in North Carolina) live within spitting distance of each other, Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving are the only time we all get together.
"Too, our homes are all decorated during the Christmas
season which now starts before Thanksgiving. Here in the
U.S., Christmas is very commercialized - tis the season for
all retailers to get rich selling decorations and presents.
"When I was growing up, Christmas was a wonderful time of
the year to me. Now it's full of stress. Why? Because we all
spend much more than we should in buying presents, etc.
Every year we talk about drawing names and not buying each
and everyone presents but we never seem to get around to
doing so.
And Dawn said, ...
"I live in a small town in Southern Illinois. My husband and
I celebrate by spending time with family, exchanging gifts
Christmas morning and staying up all night Christmas Eve
watching a 24 hour marathon of "A Christmas Story".
"As a Christian I feel that Christmas has become to
commericialized. Stores are putting up Christmas stuff while
they are trying to sell us Halloween."
Hmmm... Guess it's also depressing having to get presents
for everyone you know and trying not to forget a name. In
the Philippines, we get together and bring food but do not
give gifts.
Companies may give gift baskets to their employees and have
draws for bigger items. Still commercialized, though.
Well, It's Not Too Bad After All:
Jules from Down Under said it's not too commercialized there.
"... in Australia, most people celebrate Christmas in a
similar fashion to Americans. We have a public holiday and
many businesses (non shopping) and government workers have
the whole week off until January 2nd.
"Most families (except probably many of those who come from
countries the don't celebrate Christmas) get together on
Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I have a friend who used to
visit 4 different families on the day, just so she could see
everyone.
"My family is small, and this year my parents are travelling
from their home in the country to visit us for the day. My
sister and brother in law will come here early in the
evening for dinner after going to my brother in laws
relatives for the midday meal.
"As other people have been saying, in Oz the shops are very
busy and everyone wants you to spend money with them. Our
city is lit up with thousands of extra lights and
decorations. It's beautiful when you go for a drive at night
time.
"We used to all exchange presents, but now we only give to
the children. My Mum decided it was too expensive so we just
don't give presents to them at all. I didn't like the idea
and the last couple of years I gave my parents a present.
They were embarrassed because they didnt' have one for me,
so I won't give them one this year.
"My memories of Christmas as a little girl (about 35 yrs
ago) are helping my Grandma bake puddings in cloths with
sixpences inside the puddings, rich fruit cakes and hundreds
and hundreds of different kinds of biscuits. She gave away
most of the food that we baked. I can still remember those
mouth watering smells in her kitchen.
And from Alannah Moore, our only source from Europe (She is
from U.K., now living in Paris):
"Christmas in the UK is probably quite similar to what you
do in the States, but I was talking to an American friend
and she had no idea what Christmas pudding was, so I guess
there are some differences! We always eat turkey or goose
(which I guess is harder to come by these days) followed by
Christmas pudding, a dark-coloured round steamed pudding
full of raisins and decorated with holly on top, and set
alight with flaming brandy, accompanied of course by brandy
butter. We also eat mince pies (do other people have them
outside the UK? - they're sweet rather than savoury, again
full of raisins, nothing to do with mince!) and Christmas
cake, a rich dark fruit cake covered in marzipan and thick
hard white icing. No-one I know actually likes it but every
household has one!
"In Scotland though it's not such a big deal I don't think,
as Hogmanay (New Year) is their really big celebration. And
they really go to town for that.
"Here in France, things work quite differently. When they
have an important celebration like Christmas or New Year,
you actually eat during the night, the night before. So you
will be eating your Christmas dinner around midnight on
Christmas Eve - and it will be an incredibly extravagant
meal of oysters, foie gras, goose and Christmas log (buche
de Noel) (luckily you've got Christmas Day to recover,
because the 26th is not a holiday in France! People go
straight back to work on what we call Boxing Day which I
find awful!) Christmas isn't quite so commercialised here
I'm happy to say - buying presents is still a big deal, but
as for decorations and all that, they don't really go in for
gaudy lights as we do, they decorate the streets with
swathes of evergreen here in Paris and it's really pretty
and old-fashioned. Decorations are for the "fetes" in
general, as this season is known, rather than for Christmas,
and can still be up towards the end of January. "
To Add to Alannah's comment, Boxing day is also a Holiday in
many other countries such as Australia and Germany. When I
heard of it the first time, I thought it's the day people
go watch boxing matches. Hey I am from Thailand. That's the
only "Boxing" I knew :-)
More:
Christmas Talks:
"I will honor Christmas in my heart,
and try to keep it all the year."
-- Charles Dickens.
"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
-- Longfellow
"Call a truce, then, to our labours
let us feast with friends and neighbours,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For if "faint and forced the laughter,"
and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past."
-- Rudyard Kipling
Looking for contents about Christmas?
How about visiting these sites...
Tracking Santa >>
http://www.noradsanta.org/
Christmas Sites >>
http://www.12days.com/
http://christmas.com/
In this time of joy, do not forget about the children of
the world. UNICEF
