How do people celebrate Christmas and the festive season around the world?
Samoa celebrates 13 days of Christmas, while in Barcelona a log is burned and beaten until it defecates gifts. At this time of goodwill to all, we take a look at the often bizarre traditions surrounding it
One of the questions my six-year-old daughter has begun to ask concerns Santa Claus. How does he manage to deliver all those presents to the world’s children in a single night? Luckily, she already knows the answer: a combination of magic reindeer, an ability to scale the insides of chimneys at warp speed and a deft negotiation of international time zones.
Another new question this Christmas is: do people across the world celebrate Christmas in the same way? Right now, she thinks eight billion people celebrate like she does, eating their weight in advent calendar chocolate, singing Jingle Bells over and over until you think no other words exist, and dropping none-too-subtle clues about what should drop down our own chimney come Christmas Day.
But her hinting belies a good question. How do people in different cultures in different countries celebrate the festive season? Hitching a ride on Santa’s sleigh, we will chase the sun around the world following the season of goodwill.
There are various locations Santa could begin our journey. Kiritimati Island is not only the first place that sees the sun each day, but is pronounced “Christmas” in the Kiribati language. The name comes courtesy of Captain James Cook, who dropped anchor here on Christmas Eve 1777: “As we kept our Christmas here, I called this discovery Christmas Island.”
The native population would have more reasons for cursing the coming of the Western Christmas. Less than 200 years later, Britain and the United States chose the atoll as the testing ground for their nuclear weapons, causing devastating long-term health problems for the Kiritimati islanders.
This Christmas Island shouldn’t be confused with the “other” Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean – which was also “named” by an English explorer at Christmas (Captain William Mynors in 1643). If you find yourself there this Christmas, you might see a festive migration of red crabs towards the ocean.
