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Post by MagdaFR on Apr 30, 2017 18:48:31 GMT
In my house we received presents on January 6, brought to us by "Los Reyes Magos" (The Three Wise Men or The Three Kings?). According to catholic tradition the 6th is the day when they brought presents to Jesus. So in Spain and its former colonies, I guess, Melchor, Gaspar and Baltasar (their Spanish names) come to our houses on the night of January 5th and in the morning of the 6th we will have presents. That day is a holiday and on that day you can see everywhere the children playing with their new toys. You have to be asleep before they visit and you have to leave water and grass for the camels. And your shoes somewhere in sight so they can leave you the presents.
Some people also received presents on Christmas by Santa but not in my house.
Here January 6 is officially "El día del niño" (Children's Day) and although we are mostly not religious (according to a 2012 study Uruguay is the sixth least religious country in the world with 29% of believers), people continue with the tradition. Some families do Reyes and Christmas. Some families just give presents and tell their children it is all a fantasy but not to tell their friends.
I'll check Tolkien's letters.
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Post by ellie on Apr 30, 2017 19:06:08 GMT
In Ireland 6 January is known as "Little Christmas" or "Nollaig na mBan" (Women's Christmas) because it used to be the tradition for the men to take on all the household duties for the day. These days when men tend to share those tasks anyway that tradition isn't such a big deal.
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Post by mllemass on Apr 30, 2017 19:12:11 GMT
I don't know how familiar people are with Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau. When his father - a previous prime minister - died, Justin gave a lovely eulogy at his funeral. This is one of the stories that he told. I think it's just beautiful!
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Post by sgev1977 on Apr 30, 2017 21:10:58 GMT
In my house we received presents on January 6, brought to us by "Los Reyes Magos" (The Three Wise Men or The Three Kings?). According to catholic tradition the 6th is the day when they brought presents to Jesus. So in Spain and its former colonies, I guess, Melchor, Gaspar and Baltasar (their Spanish names) come to our houses on the night of January 5th and in the morning of the 6th we will have presents. That day is a holiday and on that day you can see everywhere the children playing with their new toys. You have to be asleep before they visit and you have to leave water and grass for the camels. And your shoes somewhere in sight so they can leave you the presents. Some people also received presents on Christmas by Santa but not in my house. Here January 6 is officially "El día del niño" (Children's Day) and although we are mostly not religious (according to a 2012 study Uruguay is the sixth least religious country in the world with 29% of believers), people continue with the tradition. Some families do Reyes and Christmas. Some families just give presents and tell their children it is all a fantasy but not to tell their friends. I'm in a Spanish speaking catholic country so Los Reyes Magos also are celebrated here but I'm exactly in Northeastern Mexico, very near to the USA so Santa is bigger here than Los Reyes Magos, who are more popular with southern Mexican kids. We eat Rosca de Reyes and when I was a kid we received cheaper and less exciting presents compared to Christmas Day. Some kids from very religious houses doesn't receive presents by Santa (a crass commercial invention) at all but by baby Jesus. The Catholic Church promotes that theory! 😉 They also hate the popularity of Halloween (it's diabolical!) here but in the recent years they are "helped" by the government who promotes Los Altares de Muerto, which historically never were a tradition here but cheap nationalism doesn't need logic! Today is El día del niño here. |
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Post by mllemass on May 1, 2017 0:11:39 GMT
Religion does become an issue when celebrating Christmas in schools. There was a time when only Catholic schools were allowed to even mention it. On the other hand, Catholic schools weren't allowed to celebrate the "diabolical" Halloween. All of that was due to pressure from parents, who complained that the celebrations were either too religious or not religious enough! But I think it's calmed down now. I think people understand that Santa Claus and Halloween are part of Canadian culture and don't have to have any religious meaning if you don't want them to.
A few years ago, there was a lot of controversy when our city hall stopped displaying their Merry Christmas sign. They still had the decorated tree and lights, but the greeting was removed because someone decided that non-Christians would be offended by it. But then our local news interviewed some non-Christians about it, and not even one person had been the least bit offended. So the sign returned. And I think that it was last year that salespeople went back to wishing you a Merry Christmas rather than Happy Holidays. It had become so ridiculous - even radio stations were playing "holiday" songs instead of "Christmas" songs!
I remember about 20 tears ago I took a trip to Barbados. We visited a family in their home, and on their fridge was their children's artwork. There were drawings of Santa Claus in his red suit, reindeer and snow. That's what the children were learning at school about Christmas, even though it was so far removed from their experience and culture - they had never seen snow and most likely never would, but there it was in their drawings!
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Post by igs on May 1, 2017 9:56:03 GMT
We eat Rosca de Reyes and when I was a kid we received cheaper and less exciting presents compared to Christmas Day. We ate that - I mean a French variation of it - in Switzerland (francophone.) There was this package baked into it that converted into a plastic crown which one person got, but no other presents. "Rosca" is funny to me though cause in Finnish it means "garbage" lol. I don't consider Christmas a necessarily religious holiday. It's still called "joulu" in Finnish, our language isn't Indo-European let alone Germanic but that's one of the old Scandinavian loan words ("yule" derives from the same word, whatever that is, don't remember.) In its origins it's a pagan holiday that Christianity hijacked. |
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Post by onebluestocking on May 1, 2017 12:01:12 GMT
My family always gave small gifts on January 6 for Epiphany, but nobody else I ever knew did. My dad thought it was a way to ease the "post-Christmas letdown" as he called it, so everything wasn't over in one day. My parents never really pushed the whole Santa thing, if asked would just say "what do you think about it?" That was because Dad remembered how sad he was as a child, to learn there wasn't one and to think my grandparents had lied to him. He had a lot of strong views about Christmas!  I was grateful that I loved every Christmas and never had a sad or disappointing one, since they were never about Santa to me. With my own kids, my husband is more of a Santa supporter so I play along for them. All the same my oldest stopped believing at age 4! He was just too scientific-minded to accept all of the contradictions. The youngest still believing at age 5. That story about BC reminds me of how good he is with faces. Recognizing fans who come to multiple performances, etc. Even at 3 he wasn't fooled by the beard! |
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I was grateful that I loved every Christmas and never had a sad or disappointing one, since they were never about Santa to me.