Around the world, many traditions are being held during Christmas time in many different countries. Some of these traditions are unique and quite unusual to the normal tradition.
As we all know, the popular traditions that most of us do are decorating the Christmas tree, baking cookies, Christmas caroling, exchanging gifts, opening advent calendars, having Christmas dinner with your family and many more activities! What about other countries?
In Malaysia, as well as giving gifts, many Malaysians give and receive money in red packets known as ‘Ang Paus’. There are normally sales in shops around Christmas and the new year, so they like to spend their Ang Paus after Christmas in the sales! At midnight on Christmas Eve, there are huge firework displays at shopping malls.
But in Japan, they don’t have a normal Christmas dinner at home, they go out and hoard all of the fried chicken at KFC! In fact, an estimated 3.6 million families gather together to share a KFC bucket every year. This tradition means KFC is incredibly busy in Japan throughout December. Delicious!
In Czech Republic, their tradition is in a similar way to the throwing of a bouquet at a wedding as for Czech women it's all about predicting who will soon be the married women, and who remains the unmarried women.This festive tradition sees single women throw a shoe over their shoulder and out of the front door. If the shoe lands with its toe pointing in the direction of the door then buy a hat, she's getting married that coming year! However, should the shoe point in the other direction it's bad news and the poor woman will have to try her luck at a festive matrimonial shoe throwing event the following year. How interesting!
In Slovakia there is the odd Christmas tradition of throwing pudding on the ceiling. As a way of finding out how much luck a family will have in the coming year, the most senior member has to throw loksa pudding at the ceiling. The more that sticks the more luck the family will have.The traditional recipe includes milk, bread, poppy seeds and something to add a little sweetness... or stickiness as the case may be.
If you thought that was weird, just wait until you hear about Greenland’s tradition. In Greenland, mattak and kiviak are a delicacy. Mattak is whale skin with some blubber attached that is supposed to be chewed, but is often just swallowed as it can be a little tough and apparently it tastes like coconuts. Kiviak is made from the raw flesh of auks, a small Arctic bird. The auks are buried in sealskin a long time before Christmas and then dug up to eat when they have reached an advanced stage of decomposition. How unusual…
No matter how unusual or strange the traditions can be, they’re special and unique in their own way. That’s a strong way to bravely embrace your culture and to learn alot from it.
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