Those of us who celebrate any festival year after year know how we develop a pattern of what we do and how we do it in days leading up to the celebration and on the actual date.
Many of us overwhelm children with gifts on this day; most gifts excite them for a while and are soon set aside. And sadly, this has become the age of ‘Want it. Right now.’
For several years now, has the tradition of Three Gifts. Being Christians, they have explained their gift-giving to children as based on the gifts of the Three Wise Men gave to the newborn baby Jesus, which were gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Other friends prefer to approach the three-gift idea in other ways. One mother said their family rule is ‘something you want, something you need, and something to read.’
A tradition called pakkelender, that most children love, is from Denmark, where parents give their children one gift each day from December 1 to December 24.
A Mexican family started the tradition of giving each of us a beautiful potted poinsettia plant one Christmas and shared a Mexican legend about a young girl who was sad that she had nothing but a bunch of scraggly wild plants and leaves to offer baby Jesus at a Christmas Eve service. Ever since then, the plant who leaves are considered to be shaped like the star of Bethlehem, have been known as Flores de Noche Buena, or Flowers of the Holy Night, and have become synonymous with Christmas.
An Irish tradition that some families have is leaving a tall red candle in a front window overnight, a welcoming symbol of warmth and shelter for the holiday season. It may allude to the part of the Christmas story where there was ‘no room’ for Joseph and Mary, and the burning light declares, ‘You are welcome.’
A thoughtful Christmas tradition is how Portuguese families remember those who have passed away, by setting extra places at dinner tables on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to remember and honor their deceased relatives.
Thinking of others is an important part of Christmas, and these are good ideas to teach our young people. To make it personal, one mother gives her two children a gift of money — with the understanding that they use half to buy something of their choice to share with children less fortunate than them.
In Italy, even today, apart from wrapped-up gifts exchanged on Christmas Eve, each child writes letters of love to their parents and warps these prettily too. Often, these are placed under the parent’s plates and are read at the end of the meal.
A particularly sweet tradition of many Italian families observe, and one that pleasantly surprises guests from outside, is having on the dinner feast table a special basket of bread to remember Jesus’s teaching of sharing with the poor, and also a basket of grass, seeds and grains to remember to feed and care for animals and birds who share this planet with us.
