By Chanse McAllister Posted December 16, 2015
With seven billion people on earth, the world is a place of distinct and unique people. Everyone celebrates Christmas in a different way.
Local students Jacob Palmer and Grace Nielsen share their Christmas traditions.
Senior Jacob Palmer celebrates a traditional Christmas by attending the Christmas Eve service at his church.
“We go to a Christmas Eve service at church. It’s Christmas; we have a tree and open presents all night,” said Palmer.
Sophomore Grace Nielsen sets up seven different Christmas trees around her house.
“There’s [sic] seven trees in my house,” said Nielson. “They’re mainly made out of tinsel. They’re pink, blue, white, and silver. And they’re all decked out in vintage Christmas ornaments, preferably shiny brights. We have a pretty tiny house, so they’re packed in there.”
Other countries commemorate Christmas in unique ways.
Samantha Wells from Australia has a warm Christmas.
“The weather is warm to hot, depending on where you live,” said Wells. “Our food tradition is seafood and barbecue. We make remixes of traditional Christmas carols, and the day after Christmas, we go shopping for the cheap sales.”
She continued on to explain her own personal family traditions.
“My family goes to Christmas Eve church and then opens one present at midnight,” continued Wells. “We give out rum balls—they’re like biscuits—to the people who work the corner shops around us on Christmas Day.”
Paige Bailiss from the United Kingdom has a very traditional holiday with presents in stockings and plenty of food.
“It’s very traditional to have stockings on the end of your bed overnight, so that you open the presents left in the stocking when you wake up before breakfast,” said Bailiss.
Bailiss further explained how Christmas feasts vary from family to family.
“Ours is fairly similar to a normal day,” said Bailiss. “We have a huge Christmas dinner that is usually in the early afternoon, but most of the morning is spent cooking it.”
There is a variety of food they consume, much of it being traditional.
“Roast turkey is the most traditional meat for Christmas, but some people will have a three-bird roast that is chicken, turkey, and duck all together. We all have roast potatoes and carrots, cabbage, and other vegetables. Brussels sprouts are the most traditional Christmas vegetable; everyone has them, but no one really likes them,” said Bailiss.
A personal favorite of hers is “pigs in blankets” and the dessert.
“The best bit of Christmas dinner is ‘pigs in blankets’, which are little sausages that are wrapped in bacon,” said Bailiss. “After the meal, we have Christmas pudding, which is a fruit cake thing that traditionally has money hidden in it, and we eat it with cream.”
Bailiss continued to describe the Christmas crackers her family has.
“We have Christmas crackers that are cardboard tubes that we pull with our family, and they make a bang, and when they break, they have paper hats and little gifts inside,” said Bailiss.
Joe De Jaeger, also from the UK, celebrates a Belgian Christmas, which is similar to a UK Christmas, with the exception of food.
“We eat something called beef wellington, which is a fillet steak covered in mushroom sauce with puff pastry on top,” said De Jaeger.
De Jaeger’s family also unwraps presents in a slower and more appreciative way.
“We go to church, come back, and we drink tea [and] coffee . . . and eat biscuits. Then we open one present at a time, which is taken from under the tree in age order,” said De Jaeger. “[It] takes ages, but it means we focus on others as opposed to ourselves.”
It is facile for one to believe the world has vastly different traditions. Once one looks past the superficialities of something as little as the race of a person, it is easy to realize that the world does not have many differences when it comes to celebrating the holidays.
