Christmas is one of the most celebrated occasions of the year with hundreds of countries joining in the festivities. Different cultures influence the way Christmas is celebrated from country to country from decking all the halls to focusing on a mouth watering Christmas dinner. Read ahead to find out how the rest of the world celebrates.
Australia
For Australians, Christmas coincides with summer holidays for children and warm weather. Typical festivities occur around the backyard with a barbecue and eating seafood. During the season houses are decorated, with many streets competing for the best light display.
UK
Decorating the tree is a family tradition whereby the entire family helps to decorate. The trend was popularised by Prince Albert due to his German background wanted to incorporate some of his traditions while living in England. A large Christmas light ceremony is held at the beginning of November to signify the start of the festive season. A celebrity usually turns on the lights.
Italy
The most significant part of celebration for Italians is the recreation of the Nativity scene. The re-enactment helps to show the Christmas story of how Jesus was born. Cribs are placed in many people’s homes on the 8th of December. But, baby Jesus is not placed inside the crib until the evening of the 24th of December. It’s also common not to have meat before mass. Opting for a light seafood meal, then having traditional Italian cake called Panettone after mass.
Croatia
In Croatia, their celebrations are aligned with saint days. Preparations begin one month prior to Christmas on the 25th of November, which is St Catherine’s Day. A celebratory Advent is to create a wreath made of straw and having four candles incorporated within it. There are three purple candles and one pink candle signifying creation (hope), embodiment (peace), redemption (joy) and ending (love). Croatians say Merry Christmas as ‘Sretan Božić’, pronounced ‘sre-tahn boh-zh-ik’.
Greece
Christmas Eve marks the end of 40 days of fasting in Greece. In commemoration of breaking fast, large sweet loaves of ‘Christopsomo’ or ‘Christ bread,’ is baked, and families decorate the crusts with symbols of their professions.
Rather than having Christmas trees, Greek houses traditionally have a bowl of water with a piece of wire across it. A piece of basil is tied to the wire, and kept alive by the water. In order to keep bad spirits away, water is sprinkled from the bowl throughout the house.
Ethiopia
Ethiopians call Christmas celebrations ‘Ganna.’ Typically they will fast completely on Christmas Eve (6 January), before dressing in a special white garment called a ‘shamma’ at dawn to go to church. They break fast with a big Christmas meal, traditionally including an Ethiopian dish named ‘wat’, which is a spicy thick stew made of meat, vegetables and eggs.
India
India is a country renowned for it’s vibrant festivals. However, compared to other religious celebrations, Christmas is quite small due to Christian being a very small religion compared to others in India (2.3% of the population are Christian). That being said, India’s population exceeds 1 billion, so there are still over 25 million Christians in India!
The majority of Indian Christians live in the southern parts of the country, and a predominantly Catholic. As such, midnight mass is considered a very important service in India, and the whole family will attend. Traditionally, they will fast from the 1st until 24th of December, and then after midnight mass will have an enormous feast.
Houses are decorated will be decorated with a special Christmas star, lanterns, and elaborate nativity scenes. Instead of decorating a traditional Christmas tree, people will typically decorate a banana or mango tree!
Santa delivers presents to children in a horse and cart, and is known as ‘Christmas Baba’ in Hindi, ‘Baba Christmas’ in Urdu, ‘Christmas Thaathaa’ in Tamil and ‘Christmas Thatha’ in Telugu; and ‘Natal Bua’ in Marathi. In Kerala state, he’s known as ‘Christmas Papa’.
Do you incorporate traditions from other countries or cultures into your Christmas celebrations? Tell us how below.