Christmas around the world

  From Ann in Scotland:

1. What do you do on Christmas Eve?
On Christmas Eve we sometimes go to a Watchnight Carol Service which starts at 11.30 at night until about 12.30.
2. What are the Christmas Traditions you do?
We put up a Christmas Tree as well with lights on, and a Christmas wreath on the wall at the front of our house.
3. Do you put up stockings for when Santa comes and where do you put them?
We put our Christmas stockings on the chairs in our lounge...our dogs Pip and Cody have stockings too!
4. What do you put out for Santa and his reindeer to eat and drink?
We put out a mincemeat pie a glass of whisky for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer.
5. What food do you eat on Christmas Day?
We sometimes have roast chicken/turkey or gammon joint with roast potatoes, Brussel sprouts and ‘chappit neeps’ mashed turnips. It’s all very delicious and everyone eats too much!
I have attached a few photos taken at Christmas time..



 
 

    
 


From Janice in Colorado:
Ms. Moore asked us to write about how we celebrate holidays.  I do not celebrate Christmas, I am Jewish.  There is a holiday the falls on the calendar near Christmas which is Chanukkah, and while that is a fun holiday for Jewish people it is not our most important.  My two most important holidays will start in 2 weeks; Rosh Hashana on September 19th and 20th, and then Yom Kippur on September 28th.  My holidays start the night before.  Rosh Hashana is our New Years’ where we get together with family and friends, we go to temple / synagogue – which is like a church for Jewish people, and after the service we gather together for a big meal and celebrate family time.  One of the traditional foods at this time is apples dipped in honey to bring in the sweet new year.  Ten days later is Yom Kippur, our holiest day, where we spend the day in temple/ synagogue and asked to be forgiven for things we may have said or done to others or God and ask for forgiveness, and we also forgive those who have done wrong to us and we forgive God if we feel he did not do what we needed.  On this day we also fast.  We clean our mind, body, and spirit to start the fresh new year.  We celebrate the start of our holiday with thanking God for light, drink, and food, so we light candles, taste wine, and eat a special braided bread called Challah.  Flat Harper will be joining me and we wanted to show you how that might look at the dinner table.  Our next important holiday is called Passover, which falls around Easter time.

 


This year, I will not celebrate with my family due to COVID, but I have 3 friends I have invited to share the holiday with me, and we will watch the service over Zoom.

For Jewish people during the time of Christmas the holiday of Chanukkah usually falls then.  It is a holiday that lasts for 8 nights, where we celebrate the miracle of light.  To celebrate we use a special menorah – called a Hanukkiah.  The miracle of light refers to having one can of oil that stayed lit for 8 days while the people at the time – over 5000 years ago could make more oil because they did not have stores like we do today.  Many, but not all families trade gifts, and we spend time in the evening with family and friends.  The special food for this holiday involves things cooked in oil – usually doughnuts and potato pancakes.

I thought I would also share a picture of part of my menorah collection. Most people just have one, but I collect them as art. I think they are so beautiful I have a collection.  I use only 1 each year when that holiday comes around.  You will see they are different designs, but all have 9 candle holder spots and one of them is either higher or in front of the other 8.  That is what you need to celebrate.

If you look at the top of the shelf that is the one I bought when I was in Australia.


    Can you see my Menorah/ Hanukkiah collection on the top shelf and can you see Flat Harper below?

So what do Jewish people do for Christmas, in the United States it is just another day for us, but many things are closed so we usually order out food and/or go to the movies. 


From Marisa in Argentina:
Now, I want to tell how we normally spend Christmas time!!! For our family, it’s a very special event! You must know that Christmas in December takes place in Summertime, the same as in your country!!! Do you know why? Because Australia and Argentina are located in the southern hemisphere. On Christmas Eve, we get up very early because we love decorating the place where we’re going to have the special Christmas Dinner. We dress our table with a nice tablecloth, we light a candle which represents our dear beings who are no longer with us. For example, next Christmas, I’m going to be a little sad, because this year in January my granny Isabel passed away. I thank God I had her for so many years, 97! We usually dress ourselves with an informal comfortable style trying to wear a new thing, for example: a new dress, or a new pair of jeans, or new sandals or trainers. We also pray, we thank God for everything we’ve lived throughout the year. On December 8th, we prepare our Christmas Tree, and the little one in the family is the one who places the star at the top of the tree. In our case, the little one is Mati! So on the 24th at midnight, we greet each other in front of the Holy Family. Some years ago, people threw fireworks but luckily, many people do not use it any longer. We do not use it at all., we love our pets, so we do not like to affect them. We have a short-haired golden (He is Moro) and a beautiful street dog we adopted five years ago (Her name is Nina), they are like my children too! They are so lovely. After dinner, we open the presents, and as it is very hot, we love staying in our garden, listening to nice music.



From Judy in New Jersey, USA
Flat Jacob tells me you would like to know about Christmas the way we celebrate it here. He says it's very different where he lives because it's summer for your Christmastime and it's winter here.

Here in New Jersey we usually get some snow every year. Most of the time it's no more than about 7-14 cm. Sometimes it's a lot more. One year at Christmas we had 91 cm of snow in a big storm. Once when I was about Jacob's age, a huge snowstorm buried us under 150 cm of snow. Schools closed down for more than a week and we built an igloo at the side of the house by digging into a big snow drift. It was very cold, but a lot of fun.

Now... Christmas. First off, remember that all families are different. Some don't celebrate Christmas at all. But most faiths have a celebration of some kind in December, so schools are usually closed for anywhere from 10 days to three weeks. (Remember that our school year here starts at the beginning of September and runs until the beginning of June.) We start back to school after the holiday recess just after January 1 each year.

Every family here follows its own traditions. Many people from Germany came to the United States and made their homes here, and the custom for those families is to open presents on Christmas Eve. Other families wait until Christmas morning to open their presents.

Just about everybody puts up a Christmas tree. Some are artificial, and others are real trees. The usual types are pine and fir and cedar. These are all trees that keep their needles green all the time, and can survive the cold weather we have in the winter. Sometimes these have been cut and can be burned as firewood after the holiday. Sometimes we get them as fresh trees and can plant them outdoors in the spring. Then we add decorations, things like candy canes and ornaments and tinsel. We also add wreaths and garlands made out of the same kinds of evergreen trees we use for Christmas trees on the door or near the fireplaces if we have them.

We put up stockings to be filled with goodies too. Some families also have a tradition of putting up mistletoe -- the rule is, if you stand underneath the mistletoe, somebody has to come and give you a kiss!

In my family, we follow the German tradition of opening gifts on Christmas eve. I have a lot of brothers and sisters (I have five brothers and two sisters!!) and we always had to go into one upstairs room after supper on Christmas eve to wait for Santa Claus to come. We could read books or tell stories or play. What we couldn't do is fight with each other, because Santa Claus would never come if we were fighting.

Finally after a long long wait we would hear the sleigh bells. And when we heard the bells we were allowed to come downstairs and see what we'd gotten as presents and in our stockings.

After we opened presents, we all dressed up in warm coats and scarves and mittens and went around our neighborhood singing Christmas carols for our neighbors. When we came home, our mother would make us warm apple cider with cinnamon sticks to help us warm up from the cold.

Today, I still like opening presents on Christmas eve, but some of my family now waits until Christmas morning, so it depends on whether we're home or visiting on Christmas. When I'm home, I have a small artificial tree that changes colors. Flat Jacob wanted to see that, and so we have his picture with it too.
I'll be glad to have that picture to remind me of Flat Jacob -- I'm going to miss him when he has to return home. From Judy in New Jersey.

From Sarah in Wolverhampton, England

Hello again Paige, 
So this is Christmas in Wolverhampton.

It’s usually cold and occasionally if we’re lucky it snows, normally it snows about a week before or week after so the traditional White Christmas on Christmas cards doesn’t actually happen!
So to answer the questions set by Bryce -
1. Christmas Eve is spent preparing the food for the next day then as a reward for all our hard work we go to the pub, last year we went for a festive curry with friends.
2. Christmas traditions are the same, I love decorating the house and have at least 2 trees and as many lights as I can! I also use fresh fir tree branches, holly and mistletoe and have a wreath on my door and garden gate. I dress the fireplace with candles and try to squeeze in some decorations into every room, even the bathroom!!
3. Christmas stockings are hung on the fireplace ready for some Christmas treats.
4. When Santa visits here it’s cold so a nice drop of whisky warms him up and a mince pie goes down well with it, sometimes we leave carrots but the reindeer’s also like mince pies apparently!
5. Christmas dinner is always roast turkey, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes cooked in duck fat and lots of veggies. My favourite veggie is sprouts which no one else likes so I get extra.

The photos show Wolverhampton with a sprinkling of snow which by coincidence I took outside the pub in a place called Tettenhall which is just up the road from me and sits higher than the city so you can see quite a lot from up there. The other photo shows my table set ready for our family to arrive for Christmas dinner. We normally have everyone come over to our house so it’s always busy and fun.

So that’s it from me I’m going to start making my Christmas lists now, this has made me feel very festive.
Take care and stay safe,
Sarah xx



From Maeve and Eva in County Kilkenny, Ireland.

Christmas with the Duhig’s in Glenmore, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland.

We put up our Christmas tree on the first weekend in December, just in time for the annual “Late Late Toy Show”. The Late Late is a TV chat show that has been running in Ireland on a Friday night after the 9pm News for the last 58 years. Since 1975 they have had Christmas toy show on the first Friday of December. Most of the country tunes in for the Late Late Toy Show!!! The following weekend we write our letters to Santa. We usually ask for one thing we really want, and a surprise. Santa has a robin that flies around our neighbourhood and reports back to him about how we are behaving.

There is a festival in our nearest city, Waterford, in the weeks leading up to Christmas. It’s called Winterval. We like to go to the iceskating rink with our cousins from Dublin who come to spend Christmas with Granny in Tramore. There is a Christmas market there with lots of cabins selling hot chocolate and food. There is always lots of twinkling lights and lovely music. We like to wrap up warm and stroll around the city in the dark. It is usually dark from about 4.30pm and the temperature is usually between 2 and 8 degrees. We always finish up our visit with a spin on the ferris wheel.

We love to decorate our tree and our house. We have Christmas cushions, Christmas books, Christmas sing-along toys, Christmas jumpers, Christmas blankets, candles, tinsel, ornaments, stickers on the windows, Christmas CDs of music that we play all the time. We start decorating our house on December 8th. The first things to go up are the Advent Calendars as we count down the days to Christmas with a little treat every day. The decorations are taken down on January 6th. Each year after Christmas we give our Christmas jumpers to Granny and she turns them into cushions which she gives to us the next year.

We are a Catholic family and we go to Mass on Christmas Eve. When we get home from Mass we lay out our stockings in front of the tree. We always leave out carrots, a glass of milk and some of Granny’s Christmas cake for Santa.

Christmas morning is our favourite time. Whoever wakes first wakes everyone else and we go together to the Christmas tree where the presents are laid out. We open all our presents from family and Santa when we get there. 4am is the earliest we ever got up!!

Our favourite meal is Christmas breakfast, a fry with sausages, rashers, mushrooms, beans, a fried egg, tea and toast. We always try to find some sausages we’ve never had before as a Christmas treat. Christmas morning is the only day in the year that Dad drinks tea!!!

After breakfast Mam and Dad start making the dinner. We always have vegetable soup for a starter then Turkey and Ham with stuffing, carrots, peas, Brussel sprouts, mashed potato and gravy for dinner. Granny always makes us a traditional Christmas pudding and Christmas cake, but we’re usually too stuffed to eat any dessert with the dinner.

Granny and our cousins on Mam’s side come to our house for Christmas dinner and stay overnight with us. We usually stay at the dinner table talking and joking and nibbling long after dinner is over. We often play team games later. We usually buy a new game for Christmas evening and try it out with the families. Our favourite game is 30 Seconds. There’s lots of shouting – but no cheating!! (ok, maybe some cheating!!)

We always go to our cousins on Dad’s side on St Stephen’s Day (Dec 26th) Dad is from Cork, about 80km away. Everyone from his family gather in Auntie Nuala’s house around 4pm for more team games or a quiz. It’s even noisier than our house when the competitions get underway. (there’s definitely cheating!!) For us Christmas is all about family and it’s lovely to get time to spend together.

I’ve really enjoyed writing about how we celebrate Christmas – I’m really looking forward to it now!!

From Maeve and Eva.


From Maria in England, with info from Poland:

Hello Bryce,

First of all I thought I will show you where we live in England, so there is a map

Then I will try to answer some of your questions:

1. Poland Christmas Eve is a very important Day. The majority of people will decorate the Christmas tree in a day's time, and have a special supper later on in the evening. They would eat Beetroot soup, fried fish, salads, dumplings and some cake and everything is homemade, normally people avoid eating meat that day.
When I was a child we used to wait till it got darker. We were looking for a first star in the sky and when we found one It was a sign that our presents appeared under the Christmas tree.
So this is all Christmas Eve, after that normally people gather in a church for a special Christmas Eve mass at midnight to celebrate the Birth of the Christ.
2. At the moment we don't do too much tradition. We try to have some quality time as a family and we visit friends. Also we like to have a bit of a Bible study to find out more about Christ and his special Birth. 
3. I'm not sure if children put stockings for Santa in Poland, but I'm sure that here in England stockings go by the fireplace and wait for Santa to be filled up.
4. As I know children in the UK for Santa leave mince pie : sweet filled with dry fruits pie , and sherry to keep him warm racing across the world. 
5.On Christmas Day we eat everything we have left from the supper  and lots of cakes and sweets like Gingerbreads, poppy seed cake and cheese cake
 

  


In England where we are now the weather is very mild wintertime, so usually we don't get snow around Christmas, temperatures are 7 degrees Celsius on average. when Poland could be covered with snow with temperatures even -20 depending on the region.

Hope that will help you with all your questions..and I am hoping this year Christmas will be a very special one for you and all your friends and family.

Maria xxxx 

From Katie in Washington DC

Hi Hudson and RHPS Students!

 

Congratulations on reaching the end of your Flat Traveller project! I am so happy to let you know that Flat Mrs. Creed finally reached me via post, and I was able to take her around to some more sights in Washington, DC. You know that she already visited the White House, but I was also able to take her to the Lincoln Memorial, a place that commemorates the 16th President of the United States who helped end the Civil War in 1865 which led to the ratification of the US Constitution to make slavery illegal in the US. We also visited the National Mall where she was able to look out on the Washington Monument!

 

I will be sending Flat Mrs. Creed back to you this next week; I can’t wait for you to see what she’s been up to!

 

I also wanted to answer some of your questions about what I do to celebrate Christmas in the US.

 

1. What do you do on Christmas Eve? 

On Christmas Eve, I am usually visiting my family in Chatfield Minnesota. We have a tasty meal – usually cheesy wild rice soup with bread – and then typically we go to an evening church service.

 

2. What are the Christmas Traditions you do?

Usually we cut down a Christmas Tree at a tree farm, and decorate it; my mom buys a new ornament every year. Usually I put up decorations, and I like to decorate Christmas cookies with my nephews. (My niece isn’t yet old enough to decorate cookies – but soon she will be!)

 

3. Do you put up stockings for when Santa comes and where do you put them? 

Yes, when I was growing up we would always hang them on my wooden stairway. Now my mom hangs them in her new home on the fireplace.

 

4. What do you put out for Santa and his Reindeer to eat and drink? 

When I was growing up, we would always put out cookies for Santa, and then some hay and grain for the reindeer!

 

5. What food do you eat on Christmas Day? 

It changes each year, but usually some ham or lamb – and sometimes beef. My grandparents used to raise sheep and cattle, so I am used to eating tasty meat!

 

It has been such a pleasure getting to know you. I hope you all have been having fun with this project – I know that I have! Best wishes, and stay happy and well!

 

Sincerely,

Katie Niemeyer


From Catherine in BC, Canada

Hi Cody, the first thing I want to say is that people in Canada are often from other parts of the world, so they have different traditions at Christmas. Leon was born in Denmark and I have a French-Canadian background, therefore we do things very differently to celebrate. Over the years, we have found a way to merge our traditions though. 

1. What do you do on Christmas Eve? Christmas Eve is celebrated by both French Canadians and Danes as the most important part of Christmas. As a child, I would go to Mass at midnight, then come home to open the gifts Santa had placed under the tree. My mother would have made a feast including meatpies and turkey, and maybe some salads and desserts like fruit cake and biscuits. We would stay up most of the night. My parents would often be going to bed as we got up in the morning. So, we played with our gifts and then Christmas Day would be for eating leftover food from the midnight feast. Christmas Eve is called Réveillon in Quebec. It means “stay up and celebrate”. We never had stockings at our house as children. Leon has always had a big dinner meal with his family on December 24. His mother would bake a turkey, served with red cabbage, sugared potatoes and an assortment of sweets like biscuits. After dinner, they would dance around the Christmas tree and sing Danish songs. 

2. What are the Christmas Traditions you do? Now that we have combined our Christmas traditions, we have dinner on December 24 which is usually what I described as the Danish tradition. Two weeks before Christmas, we like to have the children and grandchildren come over to bake Danish sugar cookies. I call them the Danish Elves! We decorate the house with Danish Elves called Yule Nissen and put up a tree inside, as well as some lights and a wreath outside.

There are Yule Nissen - sort of like Gnomes. They are meant to be helpful but can be mischievous
 3. Do you put up stockings for when Santa comes and where do you put them? We do put up stockings on our hearth. They are filled overnight (by Santa?) and then opened on December 25 before brunch and a family movie. Each year, we pick a movie we might enjoy watching as a small family and enjoy our eggs and ham, along with chocolates we receive in our stockings. We stopped giving each other presents when the children became adults, except for stocking stuffers. 
4. What do you put out for Santa and his Reindeer to eat and drink? We put out a home-baked biscuit and some milk for Santa. Reindeers like carrots! 
5. What food do you eat on Christmas Day? Christmas Day is usually a day for leftovers except for the nice brunch of eggs benedict on ham. We end up eating a lot of chocolate and baking as we work on a puzzle during the afternoon and evening.

From Barb in Toronto, Canada
Dear Jessie, Well, Flat Jessie is on her way home to you. I hope she arrives safely. She has definitely had fun with me in Canada. School has just started for us but before you know it, it will be Christmas break. What do I do at Christmas? We always get a real tree to decorate. I collect Santa Claus ornaments and get a new one every year. The fresh tree makes our living room smell like pine. We also have a very special dinner on Christmas Eve. We have fried fish and sauerkraut! We also have white kidney beans. For dessert we have dried fruit (pears, apples, apricots and prunes) that has been soaked overnight. I know this sounds strange but it’s something that my parents had when they lived in Germany. We have kept the tradition going in Canada. On Christmas Day we have bacon and eggs for breakfast and then open presents. We hang stockings and sometimes I give out Marzipan pigs. You can eat them! We always have a big turkey with stuffing and gravy for dinner. My mom makes homemade Christmas cookies that we eat for dessert. On New Year’s Day we have a wonderful dinner with my husband’s family. It’s all Japanese food! We wait all year for this special dinner - sushi, shrimp and lobster sauce, meat on a stick - it’s delicious! I hope you have had fun learning a bit about Canada. I have enjoyed taking Flat Jessie around. Stay well and enjoy school. All the best, Your Canadian Friend - Barb

From Marilyn in Newfoundland, Canada
Canada is a very large and diverse country with people of many cultures celebrating in various ways. I will do my best to give you an overview of how we celebrate here, and some ways we celebrate in Newfoundland that are different from the other provinces.

1. What do you do on Christmas Eve?  
Some people like to attend church on Christmas Eve with their families. Some stay home and others may go look at all of the houses which are lit up with festive lights and lawn decorations.
2. What are the Christmas Traditions you do? 
My husband, children and I put up and decorate our Christmas tree together. We each receive a new ornament for the tree each year. My husband puts the lights up in early December before the weather gets too cold. We give our children a new Nutcracker each year so we have a special place for them in the house. We get new PJs to wear on Christmas Eve. We hang our stockings and leave a treat for Santa and his reindeer before we go to bed. Sometimes we sprinkle homemade reindeer food on the lawn too.
3. Do you put up stockings for when Santa comes and where do you put them?  
We hang our stockings on the fireplace mantle. Our dog Lexie has one too and she LOVES to unwrap her presents on Christmas morning and see what Santa has left in her stocking-usually some very yummy dog treats.
4. What do you put out for Santa and his Reindeer to eat and drink?  
We leave cookies and milk or rum for Santa and always carrots for the reindeer along with the food sprinkled on the lawn.
5. What food do you eat on Christmas Day?  
In Newfoundland, we eat a very traditional turkey dinner with stuffing, potatoes, carrots, rutabaga, cabbage, pickled beets, pease pudding or steamed blueberry pudding, sweet mustard pickles, salt beef, gravy and cranberry sauce. It sounds like a lot but we only eat a small portion of each so we can save room for dessert which is usually a traditional English Plum Pudding with rum sauce. Prior to Christmas, some families make light and dark rum fruit cakes and lots of cookies for when visitors come.

In Newfoundland, we have two traditions specific to us. On Dec. 23rd we celebrate what we call Tibb's Eve. It is a night to spend with friends before we have to spend the majority of the holidays with family. Not everyone participates in this one. After Boxing day, December 26th, and anytime before January 6th, we have a tradition called Mummering. It is not as popular now in larger towns but in smaller outport villages where everyone knows everyone, it is safe to do. You dress up in a very silly costume of whatever clothes you can find in the house, make sure your face is covered and knock on peoples' doors. You have to knock loud and ask "Any mummers 'lowed in?" People will let you in and you have to sing and dance for them in order to get rum or treats. It is an old tradition that comes from our European ancestors and it has been passed down through the years. A local Newfoundland band called Simani wrote a song about it and there is a video so I have attached the link from Youtube so you can see it. It has also been made into a book! I have included the link for that as well. The grade 8 students at my school perform this tradition in December as part of their Social Studies course so they go door to door at school and it is a lot of fun. I have included some pictures for you of some of our traditions. I hope you enjoy them!

Here is the link to the Mummering video by Simani


And to the book which shows you the lyrics to the song and some very cool illustrations:


Here are some pics of a traditional Newfoundland Christmas dinner:

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I wish you all the best for the rest of the school year and I hope this email finds you all safe and well.

Marilyn

From Deborah in the Yukon, Canada

Hello Brodie! 

Ms. Moore asked us to share our Yukon Christmas traditions with you; I'm not sure exactly what your Christmas Day is like, but I am sure it's a lot warmer than ours! 

December in Whitehorse Yukon is very cold - Christmas Day is often about -25 Celcius, though we've had even colder holidays. We don't have much daylight in December, and our longest night is on the winter solstice around the 21st of the month. The sun rises at 11:10 am and sets at 4:48 pm, so we only have proper daylight for 5 hours 38 minutes. While the sun is up though, it shines on lots of white snow so it's bright and very cheery. We also get Ice Fog - where the moisture in the air freezes into shimmery crystals - it's beautiful.

Christmas in my home is celebrated with my three adult children, my partner Paul, and assorted friends and pets visit for dinner. There's usually a game of table hockey or foosball (table football) and lots of silliness.  

Like most families, we have special Christmas food. Christmas morning I've always made a delicious apple pancake with crispy sugared bacon - everybody loves it (see the photo!). For dinner, I cook a big turkey, and we serve it with mashed potatoes and gravy, a sourdough bread stuffing with wild cranberries I harvest in September, and we finish with plum pudding and whipped cream. My kids love to pour on the brandy and light the pudding on fire - a family tradition from my British heritage. 

I've attached a couple of photos of Whitehorse at Christmas time - it's cold, and the branches are covered in hoar frost. Very beautiful!




Best wishes, Brodie! I hope you have enjoyed learning about the Yukon. I have visited your town and liked it very much. 

Deborah TD
Whitehorse Yukon, Canada

From Stella in Nucourt, France

CHRISTMAS IN FRANCE!

People usually set up a Christmas tree in their house during the month of December. Some also put lights outside their house. Stores and shops are decorated, lights are put in the streets.

 

In Paris, the Champs-Elysées bear festive Christmas lights and the two famous department stores (Galeries Lafayette and Printemps) decorate their window-displays in a beautiful and colorful way. People come just to enjoy looking at this magical show. 



The big family celebration is more on Christmas Eve than Christmas day itself: on December 24, people gather with their family for a big dinner. We dress with fancy clothes, do our hair, put some glitter dusts on our face…



And you know how France is known for its gastronomy… well, the Christmas Eve dinner is THE meal of the year!!! We decorate the dinner table and enjoy typical dishes like foie gras, oysters, crustaceans, fancy meat and dishes, Champagne… We eat A LOT. And the traditional dessert is called ‘buche’ (‘Yule log).  

In our family, because we have relatives and friends in the USA, we are a little influenced by the American culture so we put a glass of milk, some cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeers J But this is not a French tradition at all. Same with the Christmas stockings : you may find people who put some up on the fireplace but this is not that common.


In the area where we live, it usually snows just a few days during the winter time. And when it does snow, it’s never a lot. Only 2 years ago, for the first time, it snowed more than usually and we made a big snowman! But last year, for example, it did not snow even once. I wonder how this winter is going to look like… Right now it is unusually hot here!  

I hope you can all go back to school soon and enjoy time with your teachers and classmates again. Au revoir!




Greetings from Flat Billy and Heidi from Zurich (Switzerland)

Hi all

This is my last message from Switzerland before I travel all the way back to Australia. I wish I could stay just for a bit longer. Autumn is coming here and the leaves are starting to turn. I can only imagine how brilliant the colours of the trees will be. Heidi promised that she will send me some pictures from when she goes hiking.

I asked Heidi all your questions about Christmas and how she celebrates it. Funny enough, her birthday is on Christmas Eve, so Christmas is always a special time for her. And she told me that she always got two presents on the day, one for her birthday and one for Christmas. Because in Switzerland, Christmas Eve is the day where they exchange presents.

My time in Switzerland has been great. It’s fantastic how diverse such a small country can be. I hope I get to come back in the future because I still really really want to see snow and play in it. No matter how cold it is going to be!

I hope everybody back home is safe and healthy. I look forward to seeing you all again soon.

Big hug

1. What do you do on Christmas Eve?

In Switzerland, the big celebration is on Christmas Eve. This is the time families get together and exchange presents.

2. What are the Christmas Traditions you do?

When we were younger, we’d be singing Christmas carols by the Christmas tree. Nowadays, we skip the singing and just have a big dinner and spend time together. The time leading up to Christmas is also very nice: there are Christmas markets and of course, drinking Gluhwein (mulled wine) with friends is always popular.

3. Do you put up stockings for when Santa comes and where do you put them?

We don’t have Santa bringing the presents but the “Christkind”. The Christkind is the traditional Christmas gift-bringer in Austria, Switzerland, southern and western Germany, and some other countries. But like Santa, nobody ever sees the Christkind putting the presents underneath the tree (we don’t have stockings).

4. What do you put out for Santa and his Reindeer to eat and drink?

Since we don’t get visited by Santa, we don’t put out any treats.

5. What food do you eat on Christmas Day?

Christmas Day is not such a big celebration like Christmas Eve. For Christmas Eve, we usually eat cooked ham and potatoe salad in my family. Some years, we also had raclette which is a cheese dish.

From Colleen in Minnesota, USA

Christmas celebration

In Christmas eve we go to church for a candle lighting service.  We sing Christmas hymns and then light candles during the last hymn.  

This holiday is spent with family.  We open gifts on Christmas Eve and then Santa comes during the night. Stockings are filled and gifts are left. Cookies and milk are put out  Those gifts are opened Christmas morning.  We celebrate on Christmas Day with extended family and having a big meal.  We usually have a ham.  Our family also makes lefse which is a Norwegian treat 

Some years there is a little snow and some years there isn’t much   We also wear ugly Christmas sweaters!   Our family has a competition to see who can find the ugliest one!       

From Bianca in Ottawa, Canada

 Well, Mrs. Cornwall’s trip has come to an end. For us, summer is nearly over and the fall and winter will be setting in soon. It is very cold in the winter (between -15 and -30). 

Sometimes it goes as low as -40 degrees and your snot freezes in your nose and becomes crunchy. Your breath condenses on your eyelashes and they get icicles on them. Despite the cold, winter was amazing! You can walk on frozen lakes, ice skate outside, watch them build ice sculptures, go sledding and skiing, build snow men, have snow ball fights and even go winter camping in yurts! 

Christmas in Canada is also in the winter. We have lots of snow and Christmas carols make a whole lot more sense (dashing through the snow)! We have the same big meal as you do in Australia, but instead of going to the beach, we go outside sledding or skating

Here are some pictures of winter/Christmas in Canada, including my favourite activities!



From Bianca.



From Vicki in Ukraine. 



From Aurelie in New Caledonia
Christmas is a family time everyone is with their own family or friendmily to share a good Xmas Dinner. 
But you know before the Christmas meal you can go to the place of the coconut trees enjoying the illumination of the Christmas tree, the songs, a ride in a small train to the Santa House ( one of the locals transformed his house for the day).


Christmas in Singapore - from Claire 

Christmas in Singapore is very similar to Australia.

The main focus is on celebrating with family, sharing meals and giving gifts. A large percent

of the population is Christian so going to church or mass is celebrated.

It is not quite as big as in Australia though, the advertising is not as much and there’s not as

much focus on Santa, he is still mentioned but it's hard to find a local shopping centre Santa!

What people eat; Singaporean families like a buffet lunch, it's nice to eat at a restaurant or

hotel so nobody does the washing up! Seafood buffets are extremely popular. All the

extended family joins in as the younger generation are responsible for taking care of their

elderly.

Local and expat families also indulge in some traditional favourites like turkey and ham.

Orchard Rd is a famous shopping area and always has a beautiful Christmas light display.

Everyone wants to go and see them, it is the equivalent of the Myer windows. 

The Christmas holiday period is a lot shorter and there is no ‘boxing day’ so most people go back to

work on the 26 th of December! School resumes in the first week of January.  Our family celebrates by going to a beach resort and having a few days relaxing. The beach resorts do special Christmas lunch as well and there are Christmas activities and crafts to do for the kids.


  

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