12 WAYS OF CHRISTMAS
GLOBAL TRADITIONS PROVIDE A SMORGASBORD OF IDEAS FOR SHAKING UP YOUR FESTIVITIES
Christmas is so much about familiarity, it’s easy to forget our references are culturally peculiar. Boxing Day isn’t a thing elsewhere, and most countries celebrate on 24 December. Even Santa himself, isn’t omnipresent. In
Scandinavia, Julenisse is a Christmas elf who lives in the house year-round, but needs special attention at Christmas, when families leave out porridge with butter to avoid his bad mood.
The puckish mischief and moodiness of Christmas figures around the world make our British Father Christmas look a bit puritanical. Take Iceland’s Jólasveinar (Yule Lads), a roving band of naughty elves with names like ‘spoon licker,’ and ‘sausage swiper’ who visit in the 13 nights up to Christmas. Children place their best shoes in their window and find a gift each morning (or a mouldy potato if they’re unlucky). Preferable to a visit from Krampus, the
German horned anti-Santa (men dress up in carved wooden masks and goatskins with cowbells around their hips, so you can hear them coming). Krampus traditionally comes out every 5 December ( Krampusnacht), and frightens children, punishing the naughty ones. We’ll take the gingerbread houses from the Germans and leave the rest, thanks!
More appealing is the Icelandic tradition that sees adults and children exchange books on Christmas Eve, for Jólabókaflóð, (Christmas book flood). Then they spend the evening reading and eating chocolate (see page 94).
As for the food and drink, sloe gin and eggnog give way to hibiscus and rum punch with ginger and cloves in Jamaica, and gløgg in Norway, a spiced mulled wine often containing roasted nuts, cardamom pods and sultanas stirred through with a healthy slug of aquavit. The
French, meanwhile stick to Champagne (of course), for their traditional feast on Christmas Eve ( Les Treize Desserts), where everybody dresses up and enjoys multiple courses, starting with oysters and finishing with 13 desserts in honour of the guests at the Last Supper (Christ and his 12 Disciples).
And where we might think of carol singing as something that happens around the piano,
Bangladeshi Christians sing traditional kirtan on the big day, walking round in a circle and speeding up as they sing until they are running.
Similarly energetic are Marshall Islanders in the central Pacific, with all generations joining a Christmas dance-off. Now there’s a thought….
And as for the decorations… Lights and trees are popular everywhere, with the Philippines taking the Christmas biscuit for their lantern festival, whilst palms strewn with fairy lights do the job of our beloved spruces in Hawaii. Meanwhile, in Peru, the focal decoration is more likely to be a nativity scene than a tree.
Lebanon has a more consumerist tradition, where children may approach any adult with the command ‘ Editi ’aleik!’ (which means ‘you have a gift for me’ – think trick or treating). The adult is then obliged to hand it over. Perhaps we should keep quiet about that one…