Some aspects of Christmas are shared across many Christian cultures, such as a Christmas tree, the giving of gifts, and a human embodiment of the season — viz, Kris Kringle, Sinterklaas, Father Christmas, Santa Claus, etc. Others are unique to their own locale – Christmas pantos in the UK, Christkindmarkts in Germany, etc.
Which foreign Christmas traditions should the US import?
I’ll start.
Christmas Pantos
This is something that the LGBTQ community in the US could run with and make its own. Put a surly drag queen in the main role, give her witty banter with the audience, and make it a thing.
Krampus
Thanks to Clement Moore, the US has Santa, but not his antithesis. Where American Christian children have to contend with Elf-on-a-Shelf potentially narcing on them to Santa, European Christian children have to fear a demon who will beat them. This tradition has led to parades of drunken Krampi showing up to menace the whole town.
There aren’t enough words to describe how badly we need this over here.
Christkindmarkts
Temporary Christmas markets are a thing over here, in that they exist. But their scale is too small to compare with the German tradition. Plus, gluhwein.
I think group tamale making is a really awesome holiday. Lots of Americans do this, of course, but typically only those of Hispanic heritage. Tamales are great, and I like the idea of family gathering together a few weeks before the main celebration to crank out a feast, assembly-style. The only thing I would change is having at least the option to be coed. Lots of men cook, and I hate how so often the burden of holiday labor falls on women.
Hmm… well, in Iceland, anyone who has not received any new clothes to wear by Christmas Eve gets devoured by a big-ass panther. (Not sure precisely what is the intended message for the kiddies…)
More experiences, less commercial crap. Most of the Christmas markets here contain > 60% made elsewhere stuff. I much prefer the smaller ones which have more focus on local businesses.
And then there’s Klausjagen, which is even special here in Switzerland. Many shops put Infuln (sort of like stained glass windows, lit with candles.
It’s fun to go shopping in the oldtown and see a group of people with the big cowbells. Here’s a video of what they look, and sound, like, but normally they would be outside. During this time of year there will be groups of approximately 10-14 people walking around the larger towns.
Not “European Christian children”, but “European children celebrating Christmas in, mainly, areas once covered by German and/or Austrian rule”.
Not French children, not Scandinavian children, not Polish children. Why blame Moore when reality is Krampus just wasn’t important enough to immigrants used to it and not of interest to the immigrants who didn’t have that tradition?
Yeah, I had a friend in college who was of Mexican descent and she kind of dreaded Christmas because of how much work the tamale making was. She liked hanging around and chatting with the women in the family, but really didn’t like the fact that it was hours and hours of work, while the men went off and drank beer/watched football.
We have some of the European traditions- the Christkindmarkts aren’t actually uncommon- here’s a local one for us that’s actually pretty cool:
And plenty of places have other stuff- in Austin for example they have a lot of Christmas lights-centric stuff, like the Zilker Park tree and trail of lights, and the goofy light-centric stuff on 37th Street.
I sort of suspect that part of the big difference is that the European tradition focuses on the entire religious season - Advent, Christmas Day, and the whole stretch through Epiphany (Jan 6), and there are various activities that happen during that time period, including New Year’s Eve and Day.
We focus in on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s, with no real acknowledgement of the 12 days of Christmas that *start *with Christmas Day and end on Epiphany. So it makes sense to me that a lot of the more interesting European traditions that take place during Advent or the 12 days of Xmas would fall by the wayside here.
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