Storm of Thoughts

A (Small) Look at Christmas Around the World

I realize that I am still writing about Christmas. But there is, after all, so much to say.

I was thinking about our Christmas traditions over the weekend, some of which come from our cultural background, and others from my family’s own particular brand of quirkiness. When we open our presents Christmas morning, we all sit around the tree and take turns handing out gifts. Once everyone has a present, we all open them together, at which point a second person gets up to hand out presents. (This is very different from the Christmases of my childhood, when my brother and I would plant ourselves in front of our “pile” and basically just go at it.) Of course, at certain times, a certain person might want to hand out all of their own gifts to the rest of the family, or a person may be sitting out a round or, alternatively, opening two presents at once, depending on how everything is going. But, basically, we all open our presents together one by one. (For some reason, this struck my mom as especially interesting this year, and she started polling other people about their Christmas morning rituals. Pete’s family does virtually the same thing, but about 3 hours later than we do.)

My brother’s girlfriend is from Mexico. She has many of the same traditions, except for the fact that her family would open all of their gifts on Christmas Eve. (This year we each opened two gifts the night before Christmas, instead of the usual one, as a Mexican tribute). Since part of our family is also Italian, Christmas Eve is celebrated with “The Feast of Seven Fishes” at my mom’s cousin’s house. (Besides all of the seafood, pignoli cookies are also a must.) On Christmas itself, we recognize the Polish part of the family with kielbasa and pierogi, which brings my mom out early on Christmas Eve for a car trip and long wait in line to secure the food from the best Polish deli, a tradition that is repeated every Easter. (Dinner, though, inexplicably consists of beef tenderloin and lasagna.) And we celebrate orthodox Christmas (and Easter) a week or two later with my dad’s mom, who is Russian. (Although these celebrations also include pierogi. Yum.)

The most interesting international tradition this year, though, came from a student (and friend of Pete’s family) who recently came here from Hong Kong. As we all sat around Pete’s living room discussing American movies, different types of food, and differences between China and the US, he suddenly stated, “Christmas is for lovers.” We asked him what he meant, how they celebrated, where religion fit in. “Christmas is for lovers, like Valentine’s Day,” he told us. We were shocked to hear it. Apparently, he would give his girlfriend a present, and might also exchange some small gifts with friends through a “Secret Angel” swap (which, as far as we could tell, is just like Secret Santa, except, as he said, “Angels are pretty and Santa is not.”), but that was it. He was very confused “who gets presents and who gives presents” in our traditional Christmas. Of course, he got to experience it all himself, celebrating Christmas Eve and Christmas with Pete’s extended family. But it certainly left us all wondering about the traditional Chinese Christmas!

I was amazed not only by how different cultures celebrate and how we fit different cultures into our own celebrations, but also how family traditions like these get started.

How do you celebrate Christmas?

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Christmas in the City

Growing up in northern New Jersey provided numerous opportunities to visit New York City (or, as people in Massachusetts seem to hate hearing it called, “the city.”) Whether for field trips, a dinner out, or a day of shopping, there always seemed to be a reason to make a special trip. Plus, with parents who grew up in New York and my dad often working there, trips were even more frequent. The best reason to go to the city, though, was, unquestionably, to see the Christmas decorations. My family used to make a trip practically every year at this time - and, once you’re there, there’s no lack of Christmas-y things to do. (, our favorite was always attending A Christmas Carol, for one.) While Christmas is nice in Boston (and I have the pictures to prove it), nothing will ever beat Christmas in the city.

In fact, ever since I can remember, it has been my favorite part of the holiday season.

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