Christmas Around The World: Many Traditions, Same Spirit

COURT HOUSE - Christmas, to many Americans, #Just wouldn’t be Christmas without Santa Claus, presents under the Christmas tree and stockings hung on the

hearth.

But, to millions at persons throughout the rest of the world Christmas has an entirely different appearance, feel and em-

phasis.

A first-hand look at Christmas around the world was the subject of a Cape May Gouty Library Children’s program Dec. 13. About 40-50 children and their parents crowded the library's, community meeting room to hear how people In Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, Polafid, England and the Ukraine celebrate Christmas. According to German custom, one candle is lit on an advent wreath each Sunday preceding Christmas to signify the approach of the birth of Christ, Pat Hathaway and family explained. The Hathaways experienced a German Christmas while stationed with the Coast Guard in Northern Germany. In Germany, the parents of the family decorate the tree in secret. When everything is complete, a bell is rung and the children are permitted to

A GERMAN AND SWEDISH CHRISTMAS are depicted by U Za Vam Berry and daughter,'Petronella, at a Cape May County Library presentation on international Christman traditions.

enter the room, Mrs. Hathaway saM. One thing that surprised and somewhat alarmed the Hathaways about German Christmas tree decorating was the use of lighted candles instead of electric lights. w

Germans also, differ in their method of Christmas gift-giving, celebrating St. Nicholas Day on Christmas Eve by putting out shoes for SL Nicholas to All with gifts. If the children have been good the previous year candy or money will

be left. But. if they have been naughty they will receive wooden switches, the Ha thaways sa id. All Christmas present exchanges between family members are opened on Christmas Eve, they ad-

ded.

The emphasis in celebrating Christmas in Germany is decidedly religious in nature, Li Za~ Vam Berry, a native of Sweden said. Mrs. Vam Bern' spent A part of her childhood in Germany. She and her daughter Petronella told of Christmas customs as practiced both in Germany and Sweden. A German Christmas, according to the Vam Berrys is a celebration of •the birth of Jesus. It is a bo *a family occasion on which much time is spent opening gifts, admiring the Christmas tree and polishing off a dinner of fish, cabbage, vegetables and fowl. In Sweden, St Lucia is honored during Christmas with a festival of lights, Mrs. Vam Berry explained. St. Lucia, a Swedish martyr is commemorated each year by the selection of a girl to act the psrt of the saint wearing a garland of evergreen with lit candles on her head. Other children participating in the festival don white

gowns with red ribbon sashes, Mrs. Vam Berry said. A country which not surprisingly celebrated Christmas in a manner similar to our own is England. Connie Walker, a native of Yorkshire and Renee Renstra of Lancashire have fond

memories of growing up with Christmases where Christmas pudding. Father Christmas and wassailing, were favorite traditions. Christmas Day was always spent at home with the. family, Mrs. Renstra said. The making of Christmas (Page 3 Please)

THE SPIRIT OP FORGIVENESS is the focus of Polish Christmas celebrations. Hare Adele Kulesga breaks a Christmas wafer with a member of the audience at the Cape May County Children’s Program and exchanges,

greetings in the Polish manner.

American Christmas Traditions Not So Old

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS of the past are ralleetefl in these IMh Century Christmas cards In the Collection of Business .Americana at the Smithsonian Institution’s Natiaaal Museum of History and Technology.

by Dartd M. MufMd Smithsonian Nawi Swain Christmas, you may be surprised to learn, was a work or school day for many Americans until the mid-lOOfe. The traditional American Christmas, In fact, is not so very old at all. Gift-giving, cardsending, tree-trimming and other present-day customs did not become widely popular until the final decades of the 19th tentury, arriving then as a package of Victorian style and business zeal. For many years, Thanksgiving actually was far more special than Christmas in New England. In the South, firecrackers were set off Christmas morning; colored eggs decorated evergreens in Dutch settlements along the Hudson River, and well into' the . 1800s, Santa Claus was portrayed as quite a small,

elfish figure sometimes capped off with a feather. "Technological developments , advances in transportation, printing and mail services probably were responsible for the enormous change and popularization of Christmas day in the Victorian period/’ according to Shirley Cherkaskv; a sociologist responsible for holiday research at the Smithsonian Institution's Division of Performing Arts. “Certainly, • the publication of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, with its themes of charity and good-will, affected the idea of how people felt Christmas should be observed,” she adds. Early in the country’s history, the Puritan settlers believed Christmas should not be observed at all, and in 16S0 the celebration was outlawed in Massachusetts by the

decree: "Whoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas and the like...shall pay for each offense five shillings to the country." The Puritans associated Christmas with the Church of England, a painful reminder of their struggle for religious freedom. The December 25 holiday, they strongly felt, was a human invention, a fabrication: Christ's birthdate was unknown, and therefore, the day should never have been ordained by the Church, the Puritans also didn't care much for the occasion, thinking it too closely linked to the spirited pagan celebration of the winter solstice. But in New York Pennsylvania and the southern, colonies, Christmas was another matter altogether. The Anglicans, Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, and Roman Catholics in these regions celebrated with (Page 28 Please)