Christmas has morphed over time into a huge transactional holiday for Christians. What are the gift giving holidays or occasions (if they exist) in other non-Christian cultures?
Diwali (Deepavali) in India.
Yeah Diwali one of the famous festival of India.
Chinese New Year.
Purim was the Jewish gift-giving holiday, but for American Jews Hanukkah has taken on that role, influenced by its proximity to Christmas. I’ve heard a theory that Purim got its gift-giving elements from influence by the Persian holiday of Nowruz.
I seem to remember from high school Spanish class (and just confirmed on Wikipedia) that in Spain, the traditional gift-giving date was not Christmas itself, but the Epiphany, when the three kings from the East visited the manger.
And I had a roommate in college who emigrated from Russia in around 1978-80 (Soviet days, in other words). He said the tradition was to give gifts at the New Year and not Christmas. That may have been forced by the communist government as a way of de-emphasizing religion.
Both of these are related to Christmas. December 25th is the 1st day of Xmas, Epiphany (January 6th) is the 12th say of Xmas (like in the song). Americans, with typical impatience, do all their gift-giving on the 1st day of Christmas.
The potlatch of certain Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest.
25 Dec-6 Jan is a total of 13 days. Which one do I omit to get the Twelve Days?
There appear to be various traditions:
Most say that December 25th through January 5th are the twelve days and January 6th is the Feast of the Epiphany.
While this is true, it is not ‘gift-giving’ in the same way that Christmas is, at least IME. There are no gifts exchanged within the nuclear family itself, and typically not on Diwali. There is a lot of exchange of gifts(most commonly a box of sweets/chocolates/dry fruits, but can vary) in the week running upto Diwali with the extended family with social and business connections.
Islam has the two Eids, with Eid al-Fitr, celebrating the end of the fast month of Ramadan, being the more important. Who gets gifts depends on the specific culture of the people celebrating, but children usually do.
I think it’s probably more a religious/ cultural thing (Russian Orthodox) rather than politics.
In the religion/ culture I grew up in (another Orthodox variation), gifts were also traditionally given on New Year’s . Having been permeated by more “western” images of Xmas, more and more people do the gift giving then rather than on New Year’s day.
Reported.
Sooo… we’re now firmly on the “Catholics and Orthodox aren’t Christian” camp? Or are we now using “Christian” to mean “American”?
India is quite diverse when it comes to Hindu festivals and in many places Diwali is not the main festival. For example, for Bengalis (from West Bengal) Durga Puja is the main festival and Diwali is celebrated under a different name.
There is an established tradition of exchanging gifts (usually clothing items and toys for kids) before Durga Puja and after the Puja people take turns in visiting one another’s homes and have mini get togethers.
Also to note that geography is a bigger factor in people’s diet than scripture : Bengalis celebrate their festival with mutton and seafood while much of the Indian Hindus go vegetarian over most festivals.
I’ve been told by my Japanese coworkers that Japan celebrates Christmas because they think it’s cool to have a day off and exchange gifts. It’s not a religious thing, more of a sharing of happiness thing.
I imagine that they just copied it from the occupying American forces after ww2 and morphed it into their own thing.
Also worth mentioning is that the first gifts given were by the non-Christian Three wise men when Jesus was born.
One of the widely held accounts says that The three wise men were : Balthasar, a king of Arabia; Melchior, a king of Persia; and Gaspar, a king of India.