12 Christmas Traditions From Around The World

Today I found Out,.. 12 Christmas From around the World In Russia and Ukraine. Christmas is celebrated on the 7th of January and not the 25th of December like in most other countries. This unusual date is because the Orthodox church uses the old 'Julian' calendar for religious celebration days. In the traditional Russian Christmas, special prayers are said and people fast., sometimes for 39 days, until January 6th (Christmas Eve), when the first evening star in appears in the sky. Then begins a twelve course supper in honor of each of the twelve apostles. In Ireland. it's traditional to leave mince pies and a bottle of Guinness out as a snack for Santa. A Christmas tradition in parts of Spain, Portugal & Italy. is to set up a model village of Bethlehem. Along with Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, a Caganer, or "Shitter" in English, is placed in the scene. The Caganer is a figurine, traditionally of a man, in the act of defecating. pants around his Knees bending over with pile of feces at his heels. In the Czech Republic. single women perform a very unusual ritual on Christmas Eve Day. to find out if they will marry in the following year. With their backs to the house door, they throw one of their shoes over their shoulder. If the shoe lands with the heel towards the door, she will definitely stay single for another year, while if the front of the shoe points towards the door, it means she will move out of her parents house, and she should start making wedding preparations. For over 40 years, the town of Gavle in Sweden, has erected a giant Goat made of straw to mark the beginning of the holiday season. Every year vandals do everything they can to burn down the goat before Christmas Day. Since 1966. the Straw Goat has survived until Christmas Day only 10 times. People disguise themselves as Santa Claus or elves to get past the guardians and ignite the straw monument. In Caracas, the capital of Venezuela on Christmas Eve morning the roads of the city are closed to cars, so people can roller skate to Mass. According to Nlorwegian ancient belief, witches and evil spirits would emerge on Christmas Eve to steal brooms to ride the skies. Thus, on Christmas Eve, all the brooms and similar cleaning implements are hidden and men would fire their shotguns outside their houses to frighten these witches away. The people of Netherlands . who celebrate the holiday on December 6th, await the arrival of Sinterklaas and his sidekick - Black Pete, who come by way of steamer to leave candy & nuts for good little boys and girls who have filled their shoes with hay and sugar for his horse. In Germany. December 6 is Nikolaustag. St. Claus day. On the eve of that day. children leave out a shoe or boot outside their door, and the next morning candies and/or small toys appear in them for thos who have been good or else a golden birch (a symbol for spanking) is placed next to the sweets if they were bad. For many people in Japan. traditional Christmas dinner is Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). H is so popular and well marketed you would have to make a reservationto eat at a KFC on Christmas in the country. In Greenland rather than the more traditional Christmas foods like turkey, ham with cranberry sauce, meat pies, sucking pig. christmas pudding and the likes- "Kiviak" which consists of raw flesh of an auk wrapped in seal skin and placed under a rock for several months, until it's well into the day. It's a treat that most Greenland natives consider delicious. "Mattak", which is whale skin with a strip of blubber inside is also served to everyone during their celebrations. decomposition. is the order In Slovakia. at the beginning of Christmas Eve dinner, the head of the family takes a spoon of Loksa (a traditional Christmas .* dish made out of bread, poppy seed filling and water) and throws it up at the ceiling. The more mixture that remains glued on the ceiling the richer his crops will be the following year. "Merry Christmas" in different languages "Geseënde Kersfees" (Afrikaans) "Milad Majid" (Arabic) "Feliz Navidad" (Argentine) "Feliz Natal" (Brazilian) "Tchestita Koleda; Tchestito Rojdestvo Hristovo" (Brazilian) "Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Hauw Sun" (Cantonese-Chinese) "Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan" (Mandarin-Chinese) "Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo" (Columbia) "Sretan Bozic" (Croatian) "Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok" (Czech) "Vrolijk Kerstfeest Nieuwjaar! or Zalig Kerstfeast" (Dutch) "Jutdlime pivdluarit ukiortame piudluaritlo!" (Eskimo: inupik) "Melkin Yelidet Beaal" (Ethiopian: Amharic) "Hyvaa joulua" (Finnish) "Joyeux Noel" (French) "Bo Nada" (Galician) en een Gelukkig "Fröhliche Weihnachten" (German) "Kala Christouyenna!" (Greek) "Mele Kalikimaka" (Hawaiian) "Mo'adim Lesimkha. Chena tova" (Hebrew) "Kellemes Karacsonyi unnepeket" (Hungarian) "Gledileg Jol" (lcelandic) "Selamat Hari Natal" (Indonesian) "Nollaig Shona Dhuit, or Nodlaig mhaith chugnat" (Irish) "Buone Feste Natalizie" (Italian) "Shinnen omedeta. Kurisumasu Omedeto" (Japanese) "Sung Tan Chuk Ha" (Korean) "Natale hilare et Annum Faustum!" (Latin) "Linksmu Kaledu" (Lithuanian) "IL-Milied It-tajjeb" (Maltese) "God Jul, or Gledelig Jul" (Norwegian) "Maligayang Pasko!" (Philippines) "Feliz Natal" (Portugeuse) "Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom" (Russian) "Feliz Navidad" (Spanish) "Sawadee Pee Mai " (Thai) "Srozhdestvom Kristovym " (Ukrainian) "Chuc Mung Giang Sinh " (Vietnamese) "Nadolig Llawen" (Welsh) Designed by Noreen (BuzzFactory.net) © TodayIFoundOut.com Traditions