Travels in the Riel World

In two days, families around the world will gather to celebrate the Christmas holiday. The traditions that they share will vary by country, region and culture. This includes the foods that they’ll enjoy for a holiday meal. For a glimpse into a few of these holiday dishes, check out this article about Christmas treats and traditions from five nations. An excerpt:

Chile: Pan de Pasqua (Christmas Bread) In Chile , celebrations get going on Christmas Eve. A midnight mass, called Misa de Gallo or “Mass of the Rooster,” marks the beginning of the new day and the birth of Christ. (Those who miss it must wait until late afternoon on Christmas Day for the next service, since the clergy, like everyone else, sleeps in.) After Mass, celebrants feast on a meal of roast turkey or beef and vegetables. Gifts are exchanged, and children often spill out into the streets, enjoying the warm summer air of the Southern Hemisphere and showing off their new toys to friends before finally going to bed.

Bread is an integral part of every Chilean meal, and at Christmas, it’s pan de pasqua, a round, eggy loaf similar to Italian panettone and German stollen. Flavored with brandy and dotted with candied fruit, pan de pasqua is served with the Christmas Eve meal and again on Christmas Day, when friends and family visit one another and enjoy leftovers, sweets, and a creamy drink similar to eggnog.

Norway: Lefse(Flatbreads) In Norwegian folklore, an interesting character exists: the nisse, or gnome. Over time, this figure has merged with the imported concept of Santa Claus, resulting in several versions of Santa in Norwegian Christmas festivities. The Fjøsnisse, or barn gnome, is a mischevious spirit for whom families traditionally leave a bowl of porridge on Christmas Eve, in hopes that he will ensure a prosperous year. The Julenisse is a friendlier fellow who brings gifts to children. Baking is a huge part of Christmas in Norway . Cooks prepare numerous types of cookies such as gingersnaps, along with a spiced cake called julekake. On Christmas Eve, families gather around an evergreen decorated with lights or candles, sing carols, dine on roast pork, and exchange presents. Another popular treat are lefse, flatbreads made from potato dough. Enjoyed year-round, but especially on holidays, lefse can be spread with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, or wrapped around savory foods such as fish or meat.

See the entire story for information on other Christmas traditions, including dishes from Italy, Ukraine and Scotland.

I hope everyone enjoys a lovely holiday season, regardless of what you’ll be celebrating. We’ll see you next week!

Happy Columbus Day! That is, if you celebrate it. Columbus Day has been a federal holiday in the United States for several decades now, and the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas is observed in various ways. New York City has a big parade and celebration of Italian-American heritage. Other cities, such as San Francisco and Chicago, do likewise. But some U.S. states don’t commemorate Columbus Day at all, instead honoring other indigenous peoples. And in much of Latin America the day is used to celebrate the encounter between the European and American Indian cultures.

To me, this is a recognition not just of the fact that some people find it controversial to celebrate Columbus Day, but of the diversity of cultures and experiences that exist among the people of the Americas. So I thought you’d find it interesting to see this article I published about the different ways in which Columbus Day is celebrated in North America. Here is an excerpt that discusses the non-Columbus Day celebrations:

Discoverer’s Day and Native American Day - Not everyone celebrates Columbus Day, although some states have come up with their own takes on the holiday. Hawaii, for instance, commemorates Discoverer’s Day. It’s not an official state holiday, but the day is meant to honor the Polynesian discoverers of Hawaii. In South Dakota, meanwhile, there is a state holiday on Monday, but since 1989 it has been known as Native American Day in recognition of the nine American Indian tribes who live in the state.

Dia de la Raza - In Mexico and some other Latin America countries, Columbus’ discovery of the Americas is celebrated as Dia de la Raza (or “Day of the Race”). It’s not necessarily a celebration of Columbus, but rather a commemoration of the encounter between Europeans and Native Americans, since many Latin Americans trace their ancestry to this mixing of cultures.

Canadian Thanksgiving - Finally, although it doesn’t have a thematic connection to Columbus Day, the second Monday in October is also the day of Canadian Thanksgiving. It is meant as a day of thanks at the traditional end of the harvest season. So, although for very different reasons, many Americans, Canadians and Mexicans all have cause to celebrate on Monday.

Meanwhile, it’s also worth noting that Columbus wasn’t the only European credited with discovering the Americas. Part of that honor also goes to Leif Erikson, the Viking who sailed from Greenland to what is now Canada in the 11th century. You may have missed it, but last Friday was actually Leif Erikson Day in the United States.

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, so it’s a good time to take a look at some of our holiday traditions - how they’ve evolved through the years and how much these customs are a product of celebrations from various other countries and cultures.

A story in the Orlando Sentinel makes the point that our current holiday is actually a melting pot of traditions.

Few American holiday traditions are as popular around the world as that of the jolly old man in a red suit who comes bearing gifts. But Santa Claus is coming to town only because immigrants brought him here first, either as the Greek St. Nicholas or the Father Christmas of the early English and Dutch settlers.

Even the first modern depictions of Santa were drawn by a German immigrant living in the United States in the 19th century. Immigrants brought the tradition of Christmas trees from Europe. They sang some of the first carols…

In fact, many of the yuletide traditions — some that begin tonight, Christmas Eve — that are considered quintessentially American started somewhere else. The evolution of Christmas as a mishmash of customs continues as people from other parts of the world add theirs to the cultural melting pot.

So says Edward T. O’Donnell, a history professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., who studies the historical and cultural aspects of Christmas.

Nowadays, Americans are as familiar with “Silent Night,” translated from German, as they are with “Feliz Navidad,” the 1970 hit by Puerto Rican singer Jose Feliciano.

And that is a good thing, O’Donnell believes. “Tradition always evolves,” he said.

The Washington Daily News took a look at the evolution of Christmas traditions.

Families and friends will sit down Thursday for a Christmas feast of ham and/or turkey, mashed potatoes, yams and a few other special favorites.

But if we were living in England centuries ago, Christmas dinner would consist of (gulp!) the head of a hog cooked with mustard. If that doesn’t kill your appetite, consider that in the Middle Ages it was customary for peacocks and swans to be consumed at Christmas time, their flesh seasoned with saffron…

Electric lights glowed on Christmas trees for the first time in 1895; they were a safer replacement for the live candles that had been used up until that time.

Mailing holiday greetings to loved ones dates back to the early 1800s; the first commercially-produced Christmas card was created in England in 1842…But as early as 1822, Americans were sending homemade Christmas cards and the practice so over-whelmed the postal service that Washington, D.C. had to hire extra mail carriers to deliver cards in that city. Today, it is estimated that over three billion Christmas cards are mailed in the United States.

And the Huntington Herald-Dispatch also ran a feature on the origin of holiday customs.

The Christmas tree originated in Germany around 1,000 years ago and was associated with mystery plays…When performed in the church, the tree was surrounded by lighted candles. After ending church plays, the candles and tree were taken to a home where the Christmas tree became a symbol of the Savior. Tree decorations over time changed to white wafers, then small pastries, colored paper, tinsel, cookies and other objects.

In time, the lighted candles were transferred from near the tree to being placed on the tree. German immigrants probably set up the first Christmas trees in America around 1710. German soldiers during the Revolutionary War popularized the Christmas tree in America during the late 1700s…

Saint Nicholas of Myra was a fourth century bishop. St. Nicholas appears on the eve of his Dec. 6 feast bearing gifts. He comes at the beginning of Advent to prepare children’s hearts and lives for the coming of the Messiah. The custom of giving presents in his name at Christmas time, therefore, originated.

Santa Claus was made popular in America by Dutch Protestants who immigrated and settled. His name is Father Christmas in England, Pere Noel in France and is named Saint (Sinterklaas) in Germany.

Just some Christmas history to enjoy as you prepare to celebrate this year’s holiday season. I wish you all the best for the holidays and in the coming year!

Friday is the 4th of July and U.S. Independence Day. For many Americans, that means a party and a backyard barbecue. In Texas, though, which has its own unique culture within the U.S., the word barbecue takes on a particularly special meaning. Bonny Wolf explains it in a feature for NPR’s Kitchen Window.

It’s the Fourth of July and time for a barbecue. Like many Americans, I thought “barbecue” meant throwing a few hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. Then I moved to Texas.

The word “barbecue” has a whole different meaning there. For one thing, it is a noun, not a verb. “Let’s go out for some barbecue,” therefore, makes perfect sense.

In Texas, barbecue is not just a food — it is an icon, an ideal, a way of life. If you’re not a Texan, the assumption is that you just don’t get it.

The process is pretty simple: Get a huge slab of meat covered in fat, get the coals ready, slap the meat on the grate, cover and cook for a couple of days…

In a state that’s bigger than France and that has a strong independent streak, though, it’s hard to reach agreement on recipes and styles. Does oak or mesquite work best? Should the meat be cooked for 10 hours or two days? These are still raging controversies in the Lone Star state.

Check out the entire story for more in-depth reading about Texas-style barbecue, including a few recipes.

Today is the first day of spring. Which means it’s also the start of the Persian New Year, or Nowruz. To mark the day, NPR just ran a story about the holiday and the foods that are used to celebrate the occasion.

Nowruz, the Persian New Year, begins at the exact moment of the vernal equinox, when the sun crosses the equator and winter ends. The festivities continue for 13 days.

Nowruz is not a religious holiday. It celebrates fertility and renewal with singing and dancing, visiting friends and relatives, and lots of feasting. It’s got it all: myth and symbolism, fragrant hyacinth and Persian poetry, magic numbers and magic puddings.

What foods are traditionally prepared for Nowruz? Najmieh Batmanglij, a Persian cookbook author, gave NPR the scoop:

Everything is cooked with loads of fresh, spring herbs. She begins and ends the holiday with a soup with noodles that symbolize unraveling the difficulties in the year to come. Cooked with fresh dill, parsley and four pounds of spinach, it tastes like a bowl of spring.

Eggs, of course, represent fertility. So herb kuku with its dozen eggs and six cups of herbs covers all bases. Batmanglij also makes green rice, loaded with herbs and prepared with fresh fava beans. And there is always fish. “It is very important,” she says. “It represents abundance.”

Throughout the holiday, there are plenty of pastries — baklava soaked with rosewater and honey, tiny marzipan berries with a sliver of pistachio for stems, honey almond crunch with saffron, rice cookies with poppy seeds and cloverleaf-shaped chickpea cookies with cardamom.

This year, February is Carnival month in Rio de Janeiro and Mardi Gras month in New Orleans. These are the most famous pre-Lenten celebrations in the world but they are far from the only ones. As this article points out, many countries and cities celebrate Carnival with a diverse array of local traditions.

The hedonistic bacchanalia of Carnival lets loose across the globe every spring, yet most people tend to think only of the plastic beads and floats at New Orleans’ Mardi Gras or samba and elaborately costumed (or barely covered) dancers at Rio de Janeiro’s Carnaval…There is, however, more to this age-old party—and ways to celebrate it…

Some of the most far-flung cities are now home to the festival’s most vibrant incarnations, incorporating many African and indigenous South American traditions, foods and rhythms.

For example…

Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago has its roots as much in West African festivals as it does in European masquerade balls. When slave owners banned the use of African religious practices, dance and drums in colonial Trinidad, the African slaves were only able to openly demonstrate their cultural traditions in those permissive few days leading up to Ash Wednesday. The end result is a concentrated burst of expression that is one of the planet’s most colorful and energetic Carnival celebrations…

In Colombia—one of the world’s largest exporters of flowers—the northern city of Barranquilla hosts a Carnival that’s known for La Batalla de Flores (the Battle of Flowers), a parade where floats try to outdo each other in terms of decorative floral excess. The music is cumbia—not Brazilian samba—and the elaborate costumes draw from both African and indigenous folklore…

Despite the variety, Carnival’s attraction remains the same around the world. It’s not just a chance to show off local culture and music, but an opportunity to melt into the crowd and purge the stresses of daily life. Call it catharsis. Call it a cultural encounter. Anyway you slice it, it’s party time.

As they’re fond of saying in New Orleans, “Let the Good Times Roll”!

Sure, American weddings can be extravagant and pricey. But would you pay the equivalent of two-to-seven years’ salary for a wedding celebration? Many families in Afghanistan do just that, according to this NY Times article, which notes that guest lists often run from 600 to 2,000 people and that poor laborers who make $350 a year can easily spend more than $2,000 for a wedding. The average middle class celebration costs more than $20,000.

On the afternoon before his wedding day this fall, Hamid was sitting in an empty teahouse worrying a glass of green tea between his fingers, his brow furrowed in concern. He confessed to feeling a certain anxiety at seeing his bachelor’s independence slipping away. But something else was troubling him, as well: the cost of his wedding.

In Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, bridegrooms are expected to pay not only for their weddings, but also all the related expenses, including several huge prewedding parties and money for the bride’s family, a kind of reverse dowry.

Hamid, a midlevel bureaucrat in the Afghan government who supports his six-member family on a salary of $7,200 per year, said his bill was going to top $12,000. And by Afghan standards, that would be considered normal, or even a bargain.

Why?

Afghan bridegrooms say tradition and societal pressure leave them with no alternative but expensive weddings in spite of their poverty. Marriage is arguably the most important rite of passage for a young Afghan man, and the luxuriousness of the ceremony reaffirms his family’s status.

“It’s a way to solidify your position in the tribal network,” explained Nasrullah Stanikzai, a lecturer of law and political science at Kabul University.

Here we go. The first day of 2008. A good time, perhaps, to look at some of the many New Year’s traditions around the world, courtesy of Alyson Chapman of the Daily Times of Texas.

*Baby New Year. The tradition of using a baby to signify the new year began in Greece in approximately 600 BC, according to historians. It was their tradition at the time to celebrate their god of wine, Dionysus, by parading a baby in a basket, representing the annual rebirth of that god as the spirit of fertility. Early Egyptians also used a baby as a symbol of rebirth.

* Sweet dreams. In Japan, it is believed to be a favorable omen if a person dreams of Mount Fuji, a hawk or an eggplant on New Year’s Eve. The Japanese also have a traditional New Year’s meal of long noodles, which are to be eaten without breaking them, to ensure long life.

* Get rid of the old. In South America, it’s a tradition to build a dummy representing the old year. It typically is made out of bits of old clothing from each family member and stuffed with straw and firecrackers. Every family member then writes their faults and bad luck on a piece of paper. At midnight, the dummy can either be set on fire and burned until only ashes are left or it can be torn to shreds.

* Eating grapes. In Spain, it is traditional to eat 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight, one for each month in the coming year. Eat one grape with each toll of the midnight bells. Some people say the name of the month as they eat each grape, and if that grape is sweet, it will be a good month.

 There are more interesting nuggets in the full article.

 Best wishes for a wonderful 2008!

Happy U.S. Thanksgiving!

Familes across the U.S. are sitting down today for a traditional holiday meal. Boris Fishman, though, recently had a different sort of Thanksgiving meal - in Xalapa, Mexico - which he wrote about for the NY Times.

You’re going to be part of an experiment tonight,” Justo Fernández Garibay said. “We couldn’t find chestnuts for the stuffing, so we’re using macadamia nuts.” I was about to sit down to Thanksgiving dinner at the Posada Coatepec, a beautiful inn owned by Fernández’s family on the outskirts of Xalapa, the state capital of Veracruz…

Thanksgiving in Xalapa — I wouldn’t have thought twice about it in the “gringo ghettos” of San Miguel de Allende or Ajijic. But Xalapa is in the mountains, about five hours east of Mexico City, far from the usual tourist and expat circuit. After traveling extensively throughout the country, I hadn’t expected to have turkey dinner, let alone one with such worldly touches as tortilla rounds with potato purée and coal-cured sausage, a mille-feuille of salmon and cranberry sauce infused with orange zest.

Fishman writes not only about his meal, but also about the city of Xalapa.

It seems to take cues from neither Mexico City nor the colossus to the north (Thanksgiving dinner notwithstanding). There are few American brands on the shelves, only Mexican pop on the stereos blaring from storefronts, and the tabloids manage to do their work without ever mentioning Britney Spears. If Xalapa looks to any one place, it’s Spain, the mother country to which many of the area’s families trace their lineage.

Or, if you want to learn more about the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., including its traditions and origins, you can check out this wikipedia entry.

Islamic countries are currently in the midst of celebrating Ramadan, the month-long religious observance that is marked by daytime fasting. Interestingly, each country tends to bring its own style and traditions to the month. The Egyptians, for example, are known for having lively Ramadan celebrations, as the Christian Science Monitor reports.

If Egyptians are known for one thing in the Middle East, it’s for living life with spirit. A strong, creative energy has created a movie and music industry that dominate the Arab world. Egyptian movie, singing, and belly dancing stars and their distinctive dialect of Arabic are the most widely known in the region.

So it’s no surprise that Egyptians celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan with equal exuberance.

Muslim countries around the world bring their own style to Ramadan, which this year began in mid-September and will conclude later this week. Egypt is famous for having one of the liveliest traditions. Egyptians say it’s a product of their joie de vivre in the face of hardship and deepening religiosity…

It’s on display in the traditions surrounding sahour, the early morning meal before beginning the daily fast during Ramadan. While iftar, the meal that ends the fast at the close of the day, is a more serious matter of satiating thirst and hunger pangs, sahour is about fun and celebration.

Some Egyptians host sahour parties where friends and relatives pack into homes often decorated in brightly colored fabrics to give them the look of a traditional tent. There, they eat, drink, and celebrate from midnight until 4 a.m. Others pay top dollar to attend swanky “tents,” as these fabric-walled spaces are known, at posh restaurants or hotels.

Most of the world celebrated the dawn of the third millennium on New Year’s Day, 2000. In Ethiopia, however, which uses a different calendar, that celebration is taking place tonight.

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

After anticipating the event for more than a year, Ethiopians are getting ready to throw their biggest party ever. The east African country, which uses a slightly modified version of the Julian calendar that the West moved away from centuries ago, will be ushering in their third millennium in style as the clock strikes 12 Wednesday night.

Enormous red, yellow, and green banners flutter from the sides of most major buildings in the capital, Addis Ababa, showing off the country’s colors. Women in traditional white embroidered dresses dance through shopping malls while onlookers ululate. And residents are buzzing about which star-studded party they want to be at Wednesday.

The BBC adds some local color:

(Ethiopians) love Enkutatash, the New Year holiday. It is a time for family reunions, and visiting friends. A time for girls singing from door-to-door, home-brewed beer and honey wine, and big bowls of spicy chicken stew.

The price of hot pepper - indispensable for a good chicken stew - has rocketed from 20 ($2) to 80 birr, and fallen back again to 40 birr a kilo. Herds of sheep and goats have converged on the city; some with pink ribbons tied to their horns, the sign, I was told, that they have already been earmarked for someone’s New Year’s dinner.

And Reuters explains the calendar differences that place Ethiopia’s millennium seven years behind much of the rest of the world:

Unlike the Gregorian calendar widely used in the West, Ethiopia’s version squeezes 13 months into every year — 12 months comprising 30 days each and a final month of five or six days depending on whether it is a leap year. The dating system has roots in the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Church which, like Orthodox churches throughout the world, ignored Pope Gregory XIII’s decision to introduce the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

There is a short but entertaining article in the Christian Science Monitor about how fiestas are ingrained into the Bolivian way of life.

Our cab turned a corner in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, on a rather drab, wet, Sunday afternoon, onto a spectacle of twirling skirts and top hats, as women danced down the street.

What fortune, we thought. Of all the streets, and all the hours in the day, we happened to bump into a cultural event.

Then the next day, in another cab, we turned another corner. Again, a burst of yellow shawls and skirts; costumed dancers; and cars decorated in orange, red, and hot pink tapestries.

It was then that we learned that Bolivians embrace their local fiestas in much the same way Americans enjoy their summertime barbecues.

There are any number of street fiestas in Bolivia, which include musicians, masked participants, and dancers strutting the Morenada or the Diablada.

Many of the country’s grandest fiestas align with major celebrations within the Roman Catholic Church, but in towns across the country, residents celebrate indigenous gods and beliefs, too.

Yesterday, of course, was the 4th of July holiday in the U.S., which meant a lot of backyard barbecues were put to use in grilling a whole lot of hamburgers and hot dogs.

In fact, Americans consumed about 150 million hot dogs yesterday, according to Forbes.com. Of that number, an astounding 66 of them were eaten by a single individual, as Joey Chestnut set an unusual world record by downing that many hot dogs and buns in only 12 minutes at the annual Coney Island Fourth of July competition.

All this news about hot dogs, though, got me to wondering about this annual cultural tradition. I never did find out exactly how or when hot dogs and hamburgers became such a staple of Independence Day in this country, but they apparently do not date to the first celebrations in the 1700’s, at least according to this Baltimore Sun story about the food of independence.

The Fourth of July in the late 1700s wasn’t celebrated with hot dogs and hamburgers. And there was no corn on the cob, except maybe in the American frontier, which in 1776 might have been just to the left of Pittsburgh.

The only holiday menu item we have in common with our forebears might be the beverages - beer, wine and alcoholic fruit drinks…

The menu might have included several different meats and poultry, plus fruit and vegetables in season. And because the colonists brought with them their English sweet tooth, there were lots of cakes, pies, cobblers and small cakes that we might call cookies or muffins today.

Hmm, Fourth of July muffins. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. April Fulton, however, had an intriguing idea, which she wrote about for NPR’s Kitchen Window - that is, to celebrate the day with selections from different regions of the country. Her menu included steamed clams from New England, southern-style okra, carne asada from the Southwest, and berry cobbler made with blackberries from the Northwest. You can see her recipes here.

Ever wondered how wedding celebrations differ among cultures? The Washington Post has a colorful report from a Kashmiri wedding in India.

Somehow, the wedding procession — in theory, groom first, then his father, followed by close relatives and friends — makes it to the Cardoba Hotel, where lights strung around bushes and gates make the neighborhood glow. Once the procession moves inside, it’s SHUSH, SHUSH. Quiet. Quiet.

The women and men are seated separately. Not a sound is to be made as the bride, Tamkeen Masoodi, a medical student, and Qadri, already a doctor, sit in a room carpeted with hand-stitched Kashmiri rugs. The “Nikkah Nammah,” or marriage contract, is read and signed. It’s written in calligraphic Urdu and festooned with painted flowers — climbing roses in pastel colors…

On the staircase on the women’s side, dozens of the bride’s smiling friends and giggling relatives lean in, with stacks of purple and orange bangles jangling, almond perfumes wafting. They are decked out in gold earrings and necklaces, hands covered with orange henna paint and black hair hidden under flowing silk scarves of pink, saffron and green.

The bride’s hands and feet are also coated in elaborate swirls of orange henna. Over her hair, she wears a wedding shawl, hand-stitched with intricate embroidery, the Kashmiri version of a veil.

After the contract is signed, the bride and groom quickly separate. The bride rushes off to a backroom to coo with her family — sisters, mother, other female relatives — and to be congratulated.

Indian weddings are often lavish affairs involving large extended families. When these take place in North Ameica, they can be an interesting blend of cultures and of contemporary and traditional elements. The Arizona Daily Star yesterday ran an interesting, in-depth article on such a wedding that involved families in both Arizona and India.

Flowing silk, georgette and crepe in bright oranges, greens, reds and turquoises swirl in a sea of dancers. Gold jewelry glitters on wrists, ears and noses, and long matching scarves are flipped over shoulders. Excited chatter in Hindi and other regional Indian languages occasionally competes with hip-shaking Bollywood and Indian folk tunes. The extravagant traditional Indian wedding involved three days of jubilant celebration. The event, with its four Tucson locations and almost 400 guests from the world over, was more than the marriage of a man and woman; it was the joyous union of two families.

The article covered events during all three days of the wedding celebration. Here is a section of the story that explains the marriage ceremony:

The wedding ceremony consists of about 10 mantras and rituals recited and conducted by the priest and the bride and groom as well as members of their families. Each element is rich with significance.

The bride and groom exchange garlands made of red roses and white carnations to signify that they accept each other as life partners. A knot tied between their clothing symbolizes the couple’s union and Rachna steps on a stone to signify the strength of their relationship. A fire is built in a small cauldron and the couple adds rice and ghee, clarified butter, while circling the flames and praying for the god of fire to bless their marriage bond.

The saptapadi ritual involves the groom escorting the bride to take seven steps, each signifying a different aspect they hoped to have in their marriage — pleasures, energy, riches, overall well-being, progeny and seasons/longevity. The last step — friendship — legalizes the marriage…

Chandola asks everyone to raise their hands in blessing and many toss rose petals at the couple. Women from both sides of the family whisper good wishes into the bride’s ear and the newlyweds touch the feet of their elders, signifying their highest respect, and hug them.

Monday is Christmas and many people are getting ready to enjoy a long holiday weekend.  So it seems like a good time to take a look at a few of the different Christmas traditions from around the world.  These examples are excerpted from a wikipedia entry:

* Australia and New Zealand - In the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas occurs during the summer. This clashes with the traditional winter iconography, resulting in images such as a fur-coated Santa Claus surfing in for a turkey barbecue on Australia’s Bondi Beach. New Zealanders also commonly celebrate Christmas at the beach, coinciding with the vibrant red flowering of the coastal Pohutukawa or “New Zealand Christmas Tree”.

* Mexico - Mexico’s Christmas traditions are centered on posadas. Over a nine day period, groups of townspeople go from door to door, in a fashion reminiscent of visitors to the baby Jesus, and are periodically called inside homes to participate in the breaking of a gift-filled pinata. … They put shoes under the Christmas tree for the epiphany (three kings). They believe that the Three Kings will bring them a gift like they gave to baby Jesus.

* Germany - Saint Nicholas Day on December 6th resembles the Christmas of the English-speaking world. Sinterklaas, from whom the English and American Santa evolved, brings presents to every child who has been good. He wears a red bishop’s dress with a red mitre, rides a white horse over the rooftops, and is assisted by many mischievous helpers called ‘zwarte Pieten’ (black Peters)…Following Saint Nicholas Day, which is mostly for children, the actual Christmas gift-giving usually takes place on the night of Christmas eve, with gifts put under the Christmas tree after a simple meal.

* Sweden - Christmas celebrations begin with the first of Advent. Saint Lucia Day (locally known as Luciadagen) is the first major Christmas celebration before Christmas itself. As in many other countries in northern Europe, Jultomten (a version of Santa Claus mixed with old folklore) brings the presents on Christmas Eve. Almost all Swedish families celebrate Christmas on December 24 with a smorgasbord of food.

* South Korea - The only East Asian country to recognise Christmas as a public holiday.  As in the West, Christian churches in Korea hold Christmas pageants and conduct special services.  Non-Christian Koreans otherwise go about their daily routine on December 25 but may engage in some holiday customs such as gift-giving, sending Christmas cards, and setting up decorated trees in their homes; children, especially, appear to have embraced Santa Claus, whom they call Santa Haraboji (Grandfather Santa).

That’s a small sampling of the many ways in which people celebrate Christmas around the world.  Enjoy the holiday!

Today is the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, when families across the country traditionally come together for a day that is centered around a special meal.  There are many time-honored recipes and ways of celebrating the day, although it’s worth noting that among the diversity of ethnic and racial groups in the U.S., many of the different cultures have their own unique traditions.  This story, for example, notes some of the culinary traditions among Alaska’s native peoples, which includes serving whale meat.

In Alaska’s native villages, many Thanksgiving tables this year will be set with store-bought turkey and all the trimmings. But alongside will be delicacies such as reindeer stew, moose roast, stuffed moose heart and whale-blubber salad. For dessert, there might be akutaq, which is whipped animal or vegetable fat that is mixed with sugar, berries and sometimes fish. …

A bowhead whale can measure 50 feet or more and weigh up to 100 tons. Edible parts include the meat, tongue and muktuk, which is the blubber and skin. In Nuiqsut, each bowhead caught is traditionally divided into thirds, to be distributed at Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations and at a blanket toss in June.

However you spend the day, if you’re an American who is celebrating the holiday, then I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.