Christmas in Killarney.
December 14th, 2009
I’m not having Christmas in Killarney, nor have I ever had Christmas in Ireland (it’s a Bing Crosby song), but I have had quite a few Christmases overseas. Coming from balmy Australia my first white Christmas was truly magical. I was living in London (as Australians do), but I wanted my first Christmas away from home to be in the snow so a big bunch of us booked a chalet in Les Diablerets in Switzerland. On Christmas day we wrapped ourselves in tinsel and skied all day. My Christmas lunch was a frankfurter and chips. That’s because we had our Christmas lunch on Christmas eve like a lot of Europeans do. I’ve had four Christmases in Switzerland and learnt quite a few of the Swiss Christmas traditions. Santa Claus doesn’t come at Christmas, but instead ‘Christkindli’, an angel in white robes visits all the homes, in a reindeer-drawn sleigh, on Christmas. As well as gifts Christkindli also brings and decorates the tree on Christmas Eve. Children do not get to see the tree until Christmas day. They do have Santa (Samichlaus) as well, but he comes on December 6 and visits homes and schools, distributing sweets, fruits and nuts to well-behaved children and giving good advice to the less well-behaved. He doesn’t have a reindeer, though. He comes on a donkey.
Lots of other countries have interesting traditions at Christmas, too. In Italy they have no Christmas trees, instead they decorate small wooden pyramids with fruit. In Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, it is customary for the streets to be blocked off on Christmas eve so that the people can roller-skate to church. In Norway on Christmas Eve, all the brooms in the house are hidden because long ago it was believed that witches and mischievous spirits came out on Christmas Eve and would steal their brooms for riding. The Brazilian Santa Claus is Papai Noel and he lives in Greenland. Which would explain why Papai Noel gets out of Greenland at Christmas – the traditional Christmas fare is rotten auk (a cute little penguin type bird), which is made from the raw flesh of an auk which has been buried under a stone in sealskin for several months until it’s achieved an advanced stage of decomposition. The Latvian Santa Claus goes by the charming moniker of Ziemmassve’tku veci’tis, or ‘Big Zimmer’ for short and he is required to bring presents on each of the 12 days of Christmas. In the Czech Republic, single women go out on Christmas Eve day and toss shoes. With their backs to the door, they throw one of their shoes over their shoulder. If the shoe lands with the heel facing the door, she’ll find herself single for another year. If the shoe lands with the toe facing the door, it means she should start making wedding plans.
But, then again, they might think us Aussies are strange with our barbie on the beach and a slab of VB.
On December 17th, 2009 Jack Vella said: