When do decorations usually go up and come down? Are there any unique traditions?
We hit the Christmas Log with sticks to make him poop candy.
This sounds like some Latvia kinda shit, am I close?
Not really, lol. Same continent though. This is from Catalonia.
We also put the traditional pooping man in every nativity scene. Lmao.
Aaah yes, Catalonia also makes sense haha.
Canada. We’re heathens. We celebrate solstice.
The others are starting now. Some go for months with the decoration and tree. It’s stupid.
Some of us, in the UK, play Whamageddon which is a concerted effort to get all the way through December up to Christmas Day without hearing ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham.
“I got Whammed in Poundland today!” is a typical cry of dismay for someone who has failed.
Hey, we play that in Australia too!
That song is EVERYWHERE here in Japan each Christmas and it drives me nuts.
Australian here. Christmas decorations will go up shortly for a lot of people. They come down a day or two after Christmas.
Obviously the main difference is that it’ll be the middle of summer so it’ll be unpleasantly hot. A lot of people do BBQs for a shared meal, seafood is a very common thing here for Christmas, especially prawns. Oh and Cherries. Everyone loves cherries for Christmas for some reason. And Pavlova
Other than that, it’s probably pretty similar to Christmas in the U.S.
Greece here! We put on decorations pretty much when we please, as far as it’s before the Christmas eve. The timeline is:
- December 6th, St. Nicholas day: rather than gift giving, this day is attributed to sailors. There are special ceremonies held by the coast by decorated boats
- December 24th, Christmas eve: Kids go door- to-door and sing christmas carols (κάλαντα, /kalanda/) accompanied with triangles and drums. It’s a cacophony, but it’s cute. They usually expect money or sweets in return (money is more appreciated) or even both, so make sure you’re stocked with coins! Some religious households bake “christopsomo” (χριστόψωμο, meaning Christ bread), a ceremonial round loaf of bread with religious markings on top. There’s a midnight mass for the religious ones too.
- December 25th: still no gift giving, this day focuses on feasting and gathering up, usually famillialy. Tables overflow with festive cooking, including christopsomo, melomakarona (μελομακάρονα, a syrupy biscuit) and kourampiedes (κουραμπιέδες, a spicy, dry, crumbly biscuit with a generous sprinkle of icing sugar, enough to make it look snowy). Some of the most religious have been fasting for quite some time till this day comes as well.
- January 1st, new year’s, st. Basil’s day: Now’s the time for gifts! St. Basil (Άγιος Βασίλης, Ayios Vasilis) is our own version of Santa Claus, so the children get gifts on new year’s instead of Christmas. Another feast happens, and usually ends gloriously with the Vasillopita (Βασιλόπιτα) which is something like a dry cake with a single coin inside. It’s split radially in pieces or in squares, each one given to a single member of the table, except for some that are “given” to Christ, to the holy Mary, to st. Basil, to the house, etc. so you always cut more pieces than you actually need. Someone’s piece will have the coin inside, they “win” the year and are said to have good luck. Companies also tend to hold Vasillopita ceremonies later in the year, and in those ones whoever wins the coin gets generous gifts, like a bonus or extra time off.
- January 6th, Epiphany (Θεοφάνεια, Theofaneia): The Christmas season concludes with Epiphany celebrations, where brave souls dive into cold waters to retrieve crosses blessed by priests, commemorating Christ’s baptism and marking the end of the festive period.
brave souls dive into cold waters
How cold is the water at that time usually? Is there ice?
No, the Mediterranean doesn’t freeze. I don’t know the exact temperature, I’d say about 10°C to 15°C? Outside the water though, it could be much lower, like 0°C
Dane here. Decorations go up in December - except for all the people putting up already now (especially lights on houses).
Kids watch “julekalender” (24 episode Christmas drama series where Christmas is always in jeopardy but gets saved last minute - one episode each day).
We celebrate Christmas on the evening of Dec 24 (can’t wait until 25th). Usually dinner is pork (with the hide roasted such that it is crispy) or duck with potatoes and sauce. Potatoes ar sometimes caramalized, like candy apple. Dessert is risalamande, a rice pudding with whipped cream and chunks of almonds. The person that finds the sole uncut almond wins a prize. We then turn on the lights of the Christmas tree… And dances around it singing (this is where foreigners really starting giving confused stares 😂). When done we open our gifts and have a hyggelig time.
From the US but in Japan. Christmas is a normal working day. Couples often go out for a date night. KFC’s chicken (or another fried or roasted one) is a common staple for dinner.
Family will get each other presents. I’ve heard it’s more like one present, but I don’t really know. I should ask the in-laws this winter when we go for New Years (the big family gathering time in Japan and NOT so much a big party time with lots of businesses closed).
Pretty much the same, except that the main celebration (and gift-giving!) occurs on the Eve, and the songs are depressing.
Rural Germany. Christmas time still starts in December/1st advent for me, although some houses have wintery decorations up the day they remove the Halloween ones, and the city has made some preparations for the coming Christmas markets today. Christmas markets are where people go buy Glühwein/mulled wine in a Christmassy atmosphere, a hot drink just tastes better in cold weather than in one’s house (we drink it there as well, of course, can’t enjoy Christmas sober).
Advent traditions include an advent wreath, which is still really Christian in nature, and advent calendar, which has become entirely commercialised around toy brands and chocolate.
The gift giving and the first proper look at the tree is done on Christmas Eve’s Evening, after the religious members of the family went to Church. That evening we eat either raclette or hot pot/Chinese fondue, the other meal then a week later at Silvester. We have started to eat a locally sourced Christmas goose on Christmas day recently.
Dont forget the classic christmas dinner of just sausages sauerkraut and bread
For Norway it depends, really…
We get the small things (lights, figurines) out with advent starting, so late november/early december, but don’t do the tree until the night before (23rd). The outside lighting we usually do a bit earlier, as it gets super dark here and it looks nice.
Some people do it much earlier.Special traditions for Norway would probably be porridge with an almond in it. The one who gets the almond wins the marzipan prize.
Our family does it a bit differently: There are many almonds, the total changing every year and only Mum knows, and the one with the most gets to pick from the prize pool first. That way, everybody gets something and the kids are happy.
I finally won last year with 14.
It’s also super fun watching people looking like chipmunks, hiding their almonds until it’s time to count.Quebec here. There isn’t much “magic” anymore. Too much too early too soon. It has become pretty much only a cheap commercial stunt.
Some asshole stores annoyingly start decorating early September, most do it in October. And the fucking music blasting non-stop 24/7.
Fuck this shit.
Canada, here.
It’s the same in the West. There are 12 days of Christmas and none of them are in fucking November.
My wife and I like to get out of town when we can, but lately it’s a low-key night at home, no work, watching some telly or something. She likes all the classics: misfit toys and Burl Ives.
Colombian here. Some people start in November, some in December, some never take theirs out after December. Goverment decorations usually are December.
However, over the years the ammount of people doing external decorations has decreased inmesenly, from maybe 75% to 25%.
Sweden. Some people are having decorations up already but normal is from advent. Christmas is celebrated the eve of the 24th with dinner and Santa visiting in person. Dinner is commonly a Christmas ham and other regional or family traditional dishes. 25th is a slow day when kids are playing with their new toys and the adults are relaxing after the build up until Christmas eve. The evening of the 25th is quite common for young adults that are visiting their family home in a town where they no longer live to go out to the local bars and get shitfaced with people they used to know, possibly air their teenage grudges or crushes and get in a fight or laid depending on the scenario and outcome.
Another Swede here.
This is all true, though I don’t have personal experience with going out to the bars.
I thought I’d add some personal details and forgotten details:
- Personal - The Christmas baking: Every year in late november to early december, our family gathers to make almond mussels, hard cakes eaten with jam and cream, we use a recipe that is more than a century old and make the almond dough/paste from scratch.
- National - Christmas Donald: every Christmas eve, the entire nation gathers infront of the TV, tuning into the national broadcaster to watch Donald Duck celebrating Christmas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_All_of_Us_to_All_of_You
- Personal - Decorating the tree: My family has allways had this tradition to only bring the Christmas tree inside on the night before Christmas eve as the Christmas ham is cooking, I have heard that this is common, but I don’t know if it is accurate to call it a national tradition… Anyway, we decorate with baubles, lights and other stuff like that, but absolutely no tinsel nor coloured lights, however we do put small baskets with chocolates in them hanging on the branches. An interesting thing is that we in our family has never used glass baubles, that was a rational decision by my mom, she decided on using plastic decorations to avoid us kids getting hurt if we broke one, so when we drop a bauble they just bounce a bit, snd I was really surprised when a bauble dropped and my grandparents house and didn’t bounce…
- National - Dad going out to buy the paper on Christmas eve, classic story to hide who is playing santa, though personally I found the story told at my grandparents house to be smarter… There would be an uncle looking at his watch and exclaiming that he needed to meet up santa and watch his raindeers, perfectly logical, there was a field a block away and it made sense to have santa land there, and obviously you need someone to watch the deers! Perfectly logical!
- National - Lye treated cod, melted butter and mustard sauce is a great Christmas meal: every Christmas plenty of Swedes put lutfisk on their Christmas table, it is cod with very little taste and the texture of jelly, eaten with potatoes, melted butter and mustard sauce, the sauce is required, and makes the dish excellent! Dad usually makes the sauce from scratch every Christmas eve just before supper.
- National - the upside down V lights in the window: Sweden at Christmas is VERY dark, snd a tradition is to put pyramid shaped electric candle holders in the windows at first Advent and keep them up until late Jan / early Feb, this is a Christmas decoration, not a political protest as was suggested by a Frenchman my dad worked with at one time.
And the traditional beverage of choice is the carbonated soft drink Julmust, despite a certain international soda company upping their efforts every year to be associated with Christmas. (Their Christmas ads are not very popular in Sweden because hey it’s once a year something is outselling your product, you greedy ghoul. Let us have our own traditions.)
Remember Bjäre Julmust?
That was when they gave in and competed in the actual Julmust market, failed on it’s arse.
The mainstream Julmust is and always wiöö be Apotekarnes.
The best Julmust is Zeunerts
BBQs and the beach here in NZ, much the same as .au.
The shops here have just started to decorate in the last week or so. The first houses are starting to put stuff up. We kick off on Dec 1st when we tane the kids to cut down a tree and then do a advent from then to the 23rd. We do our christmas on the 24th and travel to my mums on the 25th and do christmas lunch/dinner ther and stay for at least her birthday (the 26th). Generally do a BBQ and a ham.
Australian here, decorations go up in about early December and come down by early January generally; I imagine similar to the US.
Otherwise given there’s no snow during that time of year, it’s usually celebrated by doing summer things like going to the beach, having a barbie, and generally just a time for families and friends to come together while no-one has work.
That’s a narrower time period than the US. A decent number of people have Christmas decorations up already in the US, and Christmas stuff has been in stores for a while already.
Another Aussie here, what JustARegularNerd said is/was generally true, but this year I’ve noticed decorations for sale from October and my neighbours mostly already have their decorations up (most from early November, but one from 2 days before Halloween).
U.S. sample size of 1 here. I don’t have any Christmas decorations up yet, but we have begun updating gift lists, purchasing some gifts (I monitor sales to find the actually decent ones for the 3-4 months prior, but don’t usually buy unless it’s really good), and we’ve watched a couple of Christmas-ish movies (Rise of the Guardians and Alien X-mas). We’ll put up our decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving. Oh, and I keep an eye out for Christmas decorations we like for a decent price. Haven’t found any yet. Did fine a decent projector for half off. I suspect it’s really more like $40 off, but that’s decent. Haven’t bought it yet, though.
