I hope you’ve all had a good Christmas and that the upcoming year is full of joy and blessings. For this post, I wanted to highlight the traditions of other countries and also divulge into what we have planned at Xanthos for the upcoming year.
The Americas
We will start in America. After the New Year, Christmas is officially over in the U.S., but in other countries, this is not the case. In my culture, we’re still in the middle of our Christmas celebrations with Epiphany (Three Magi/Kings Day) coming up in January. This celebration is common in Latin America and most Hispanic speaking countries. For example, Puerto Rico starts their Christmas celebrations after Thanksgiving (U.S holiday) and it continues until eight days after Epiphany day. That celebration is called “Las Octavitas” which loosely translates to “The Eight Days.” This is followed by the Festival of Saint Sebastian’s Street which lasts from January 18 to 21st. And then, FINALLY, Christmas in Puerto Rico is considered over.
The Philippines
The Philippines does not get left behind when it comes to Christmas celebrations. Yes, there may or may not be a friendly competition between the Philippines and Puerto Rico of which country actually celebrates Christmas the longest. For the philippines, their festivities can start in August and end in the third week of January. They have an extra holiday aside from Christmas Eve and Christmas that some Latin American countries don’t celebrate, which is the Day of the Holy Innocents on December 28th. It's a beautiful celebration and if you have the chance to participate, do so.
Germany and Austria
In Germany and Austria, the celebrations begin on the 1st of December, but some people do not put up their trees until Christmas Eve. During Advent, they light a candle each Sunday that represents hope, love, peace and joy. On the first sunday you light one candle (peace for example), and on the second sunday you light two candles, the first candle and the second (i.e peace and hope). This continues for four Sundays until the 25th of December where they light the fifth candle in celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. On the 6th of December they also celebrate the Day of Saint Nicholas, and celebrations for this begin the night before where the men dress up as Krampus and chase kids down the street. They celebrate the 24th of December as Christ the Child (Christkindl) instead of Christmas Eve.
Afterwards, they also celebrate Epiphany day on January 6th. To my understanding, each house is blessed and the kids dress up as the three magi. But the best of all of it is probably the Christmas markets with their delicious pastries and mulled wine (hello, old friend).
As you know, traditions can vary not just by country but by region within a country as well. I state this in case there’s any misunderstanding. I don’t want a fight over who originated the famous Christmas pickle ornament. As in, whether it was the Germans or the Americans. Some people will question why I’ve put this, but I’d rather leave it as a Mystery.
The New Year
Moving on to less treacherous waters, let’s talk about what we have planned for the next series of blog posts. As we are a small business, it's been difficult to maintain our blog up to date. So this new year we’ve planned a series of different topics for your interest.
We’ll be covering the many styles of home decor. We’ll be talking about Feng Shui, which is a complicated topic but one I find fascinating and I use in my home. We’ll explain about buying from antique stores, and many other things we hope you enjoy and provide something positive to your life. With this, I sign off until next year.
I wish all of you a wonderful New Year and that it brings plenty of new opportunities and health!
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