Holiday traditions are viewed and celebrated differently by each culture all around the world. Christmas is traditionally celebrated by decorating the Christmas tree, exchanging gifts with your friends and family, carol singing around the neighborhood, watching Christmas movies, listening to Christmas music, and kids often leave cookies and milk out for Santa Claus in exchange for presents.
It is common for American kids to open their presents first thing Christmas morning and celebrate in the afternoon by hosting a dinner with their loved ones. These dinners include popular foods like roasted turkey and ham, lamb, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, eggnog, prime rib, and cranberry sauce. While also having desserts like fruit cake, which is a spiced cake with dried fruits and nuts, sugar cookies, hot chocolate, and pies with flavors like pumpkin, pecan, apple, and cherry.
Some popular movies people in the U.S watch during the holidays include Home Alone, Elf, The Polar Express, A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and White Christmas. Popular Christmas music in the U.S includes songs like Jingle Bells, All I Want for Christmas Is You, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Last Christmas, Jingle Bell Rock, It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, A Holly Jolly Christmas, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! and It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.
Some popular games families in the U.S play include white elephant, secret Santa, gingerbread house decorating competitions, and ugly sweater contests. There are many ways families in the U.S celebrate Christmas, but on the other hand, the Hispanic culture also has some different Christmas traditions.
Many Hispanic families celebrate Christmas by celebrating on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. They celebrate by also decorating the Christmas tree, exchanging gifts with friends and family, and listening to Christmas music, but also some other things like posadas, fireworks, dancing, and midnight Mass. It is popular for Hispanic families to decorate with “flores de Noche Buena,” which are poinsettia flowers.
Another decoration many Hispanic families use during this time is ceramic figures used to represent the birth of Jesus Christ, also known as a Nacimiento. Something different is that Hispanic families wait until 12 am on Christmas Eve to open gifts instead of in the morning, like in the U.S. A posada is a nine-day tradition in Mexico that lasts from December 16 to the 24 that reenacts the journey of Mary and Joseph searching for shelter in Bethlehem. It involves people going from door to door, singing songs to ask for “posada,” and after being repeatedly denied, they are finally welcomed into a host’s home for a party with food, music, and prayers.
Some popular Hispanic Christmas dishes include foods like tamales, pozole, roasted turkey, enchiladas, menudo, tacos and desserts like churros, arroz con leche which is a rice pudding with milk, pumpkin empanadas which is bread filled with a pumpkin puree, champurrado which is a chocolate based warm drink, flan which is a baked custard dessert with a caramel topping, conchas which are sweet bread with a sugar topping and buñuelos which is dough fried in oil topped with sugar and cinnamon.
Some popular Hispanic Christmas movies include Noche de Reyes, Los Reyes Magos, Santa Claus, El Sabor de la Navidad, and Holiday in Santa Fe. Midnight Mass or “Misa de Gallo” is a Christmas Eve Catholic mass celebrated by many Hispanic communities to mark the beginning of Christmas Day. The tradition is a preparation for the birth of Jesus, and a way to honor the Virgin Mary. This shows how everyone can celebrate traditions in their own way.
