Reading One

Christmas around the world

Christmas in Australia

Adapted from an essay by Rodney Berry

Christmas in Australia is always about 30° Celsius which is really hot. As the weather is so good, most Australian families go away and spend their holidays in a resort or on the beach. So ocean sports like swimming and surfing are always popular at Christmas.

Christmas is casual here in Australia, people walk around in shorts and T-shirts. Everyone invites their friends and grandparents over for salad with cold meats, or a picnic, or even a barbecue. Unlike Christmas in other countries nobody has anything like a roast dinner or a turkey.

When kids wake up on Christmas morning, they hurriedly toss off their sheet and race towards the plastic . All the presents are piled up under it. When the time comes to open the presents the kids tear off the paper and compare presents. When all of the presents have been opened they go outside and have a game of cricket or go to the beach for a swim.

Source: http://www.zuzu.org/daze.html

Christmas in El Salvador Adapted form an essay by Mirna Salgado

Christmas in El Salvador is a time to spend with family. On Christmas day, everybody is always very busy. In the morning we wake up and prepare all the ingredients we need to cook the Christmas meal. For example, if the family is going to make , they prepare the meat one day before. In my country, families celebrate this day in church, and after church we continue celebrating at home. We dance and enjoy the time with lots of friends, aunts, uncles and cousins. At about midnight, we shoot off fireworks and all the children play games together. The adults all talk together about family things but children talk about Santa because they are waiting for presents. Parents put toys under the bed, and the next day all the children look under the bed to see if Santa has left something for them.

Source: http://www.zuzu.org/daze.html

1/6 - Christmas Celebrations in

Adapted from an essay by Wendy Navarrete

Lodging -"Posadas" in Spanish – is one of the most popular festivals celebrated during December in Mexico. They are done to remember the pilgrimage by Joseph and Mary who were looking for a place to stay in .

The Lodgings start from the 16th of December until the night of the 24th. The people of the neighborhood celebrate this by going to different houses each night. A procession is formed by two people who carry the statues of Mary, Joseph, and an angel. They are also accompanied by a donkey. People carry candles, sing litanies (prayers), stand outside the door of houses and ask for lodging.

The people inside the houses sing songs denying the visitors entry, until they see that it is Joseph and Mary asking for lodging.

Towards the end of the celebration, the doors are opened and the people who were standing outside are let in. Here is where the fun begins. Punch is made from hot fruits; food and goodies are served to everyone.

Finally, the kids get to break a piñata. Each is given a turn to try to hit the piñata. Their eyes are covered with a bandana, and they are given a stick and turned around several times. The Pinata is moving quickly as it is hanging from a rope and being pulled by an adult. Those people watching try to tell the boy or girl exactly where the piñata is. When the pinata is broken, candy and fruit fall out and everyone runs to get some. This is the best part of the winter festival Las Posadas!

Source: http://www.zuzu.org/daze.html

Christmas in Hungary

Adapted from an essay by Linda Sarkadi

Hungarian people celebrate Christmas twice! The first time is December 6th - St. Nicholas (Mikolás) Day. On this day, we eat a lot of good things and get gifts from Mikolás, who carries a big sack full of presents. He dresses in red, wears a bishop's hat and has a staff. Mikolás has two helpers: one is the good angel who helps give out the presents; the other is the bad devil - Krampusz - he makes mischief.

Our second Christmas is December 25th. On the afternoon of , all the children leave the house to visit or go for a walk with friends and relatives. Meanwhile, their parents, "with the help of angels," hurriedly put up the Christmas tree. It is decorated with colorful ornaments and very special holiday candies, wrapped in bright

2/6 gold and red foil and tied with bows, called Szaaloncukor. These are chocolate on the outside with marzipan, raspberry or orange jelly inside.

When the children return home, they aren't allowed to come into the living room until a bell is rung. Then they enter the dark room and look with wonder at the tree lit with candles and sparklers. Everyone stands around the tree to sing carols, and exchange presents.

On Christmas Day, the families eat a special Hungarian holiday meal which usually consists of fish, lentils and poppy seed strudel. We dress up, go to church and if there is snow, we might go outside to make a Hóember - snowman.

Source: http://www.zuzu.org/daze.html

3/6 Reading Two

Celebrating the New Year

Celebrating the New Year in Vietnam

Adapted from an essay by Ngoc-Ahn (Annie) Ho from Vietnam

Every country has famous holidays because they symbolize the customs of people. A famous holiday in my country is the Lunar New Year Festival. Even today many Vietnamese still keep this traditional holiday.

In contrast to other countries, in Vietnam the New Year holiday happens in February. In the month before the holiday, people clean up and whitewash their houses. They buy fresh flowers and a peach blossom to put in their house as this is a Vietnamese custom. Second, they buy cakes and fruits such as watermelons, ginger-sweetmeat, coconut-sweetmeat, plum-sweetmeat, and lotus seeds to give to their relatives.

On the midnight of the holiday, people go to pagodas to pray to Buddha. Everyone walks along the streets and talks together. After visiting the pagoda, old and young people go to the park to see Chinese dragon dances and fireworks. The next morning, the children have to wish their grandparents, parents and relatives a Happy New Year. If the children wish their parents good luck, their parents will give them a red envelope that has money inside. Then the family eats cakes and watermelon. We eat watermelons because they are special fruits during the Vietnamese New Year.

Source: http://www.topics-mag.com/

New Year's Day in Korea Adapted from an essay by IckChan Lee

On New Year's Eve On Sol-nal's (New Year’s) Eve, people prepare special sieves made with straw (Bok-jori) and hang them outdoors to protect their family from evil and bad luck. Often, kids try to stay awake all night because they believe that if they sleep, their eyebrows will turn white.

Clothes On the morning of Sol-nal, everyone dresses in specially prepared, traditional clothes (usually new and fresh). Generally, these clothes are decorated with five colors. They are called Sol-bim.

Food Early in the morning, every family gathers at their eldest male member's home to perform Cha-rye, ancestral memorial ceremonies. Bowls of Ttok-kuk are served. This is a soup of thinly, sliced white rice cake, boiled in a thick beef broth topped with bright garnishes and green onions.

4/6 Entertainment After the long bowing period, youngsters go outside to fly kites, spin tops (for boys) and enjoy Korean seesawing (for girls). Inside, people play Yut-no-ri, a game played with four wooden sticks and checkers. They eat, talk, and play all day long and enjoy their large family reunion: Everyone, including great grandfathers and great granddaughters has a lot of fun.

Source: http://www.topics-mag.com/

Mexico

Adapted from an essay by Paola Montsalve

In Mexico, many people usually gather with their relatives and friends to celebrate the New Year. On New Year's Eve, we have some special customs. For example, we turn on the TV and wait to see or hear the bell ringing twelve times. Each time the bell rings, we eat one grape and make a wish. Then we hug each other and wish each other a Happy New Year. Some people, especially women, wear red underwear this means that they will find love in that year. There are also people who take out their suitcases and walk around the block, this means that they will travel that year. There's also a custom on January 6th to eat a special cake with a hole in it and a small toy inside.

Source: http://www.topics-mag.com/

Thailand Adapted from an essay by Rungsima Trahoolngam (Kwang)

In Thailand, we don't have specific customs for the Western New Year's Eve, (December 31st), because traditional Thai Lunar New Year is in April. So when the Western New Year comes, because we don’t have a lot of customs people just celebrate with their families. A few days before New Year's Day, most people who have migrated from another city to the capital city of Thailand will go back to their own city in order to celebrate with their families. At twelve o'clock when the clock chimes, people usually say, "Happy New Year!" to family members. Some families have fireworks, too. On the morning on January 1st, children often ask for some blessings or wishes from their parents and grandparents, and older relatives will give the children new money, usually quite a lot of money. The children will use this money to buy whatever they want because they think that when the New Year comes, everything should be new. New things are a good sign for starting life again. Most people think if the period before New Year's was bad, the New Year will bring them good luck, and they can start their life again.

Source: http://www.topics-mag.com/

5/6 Reading Three

Christmas and New Year Celebrations in Russia Alexander Iona and Svetlana Rodinskaia

In Russia, we celebrate Christmas not on the 25th of December, but on the 7th of January. This is because the Russian Church, like other Orthodox Churches, still uses the Julian calendar instead of the . In everyday, however, life we use the Gregorian calendar, and the beginning of the New Year is therefore celebrated on the same day as in the rest of the world. This means that, in contrast to much of the world, in Russia the New Year celebration comes before Christmas. As a result, the tradition of celebrating the New Year has become more important in recent years.

Russia began celebrating the New Year as a separate holiday in 1700, when Czar Peter the Great ordered Russian people to count the New Year as beginning in January rather than September, as had been done previously. At the same time, an order "about the celebration of the new year" was issued and people began a tradition of decorating their houses with pine boughs. Christmas remained the main holiday until the revolution in 1917 when the new government tried to cut out religion in peoples’ lives and persuaded them to pay more attention to New Year celebrations than Christmas celebrations. Today, more and more people are trying to restore the Orthodox traditions, but the New Year is still the main winter holiday for most Russians.

Wherever you celebrate New Year in Russia, you will see the same New Year symbols and traditions. The New Year’s Tree (Novogodnaya Yolka), decorated with and sweets (during Soviet times we also used to put a big red star on top of the tree) is always the centre of attention. Old Man Frost () and his granddaughter Snowgirl () bring New Year presents and put them under the tree. To get a present, children must sing a song or read a poem for Old Man Frost. The better they perform, the better presents they get.

The most common food for the New Year table is Olive salad (consisting of meat, potatoes, pickles, green peas, onion, carrots, and mayonnaise), while the most common drink is champagne. After listening to the traditional New Year speech from the President, everybody tries to open a bottle of champagne and make a wish within the first seconds of the New Year. Soon after, many go outdoors to wish “Happy New Year” to one another, to launch New Year rockets and fireworks, and to light Bengal lights.

Of course, the main celebration takes place during the night from December 31st to January 1st, but many people continue visiting their friends and relatives with New Year greetings for several days or even weeks. It is also quite common to have a New Year party with colleagues from work several days before December 31st. The big New Year celebration usually ends after January 13th, when the country celebrates the so-called Old-Style New Year. This event is unofficial but is a very popular holiday and represents the beginning of a new year according to the old Julian calendar. After that, people remove the decorations from their houses, discard the New Year’s Trees, and get back to work.

Source: http://www.wscsd.org/ejournal/article.php3?id_article=176 6/6