By Beatrice Allen
Feliz Navidad! Buon Natale! Happy holidays! Have you ever wondered what it’s like to celebrate Christmas in a different country? Now you can because in this article is a range of Christmas traditions from different cultures. Enjoy.
The title of this article is pretty self-explanatory because I am here for one job: find interesting Christmas traditions from around the world, write about them and then stop writing. That simple, so what are you waiting for, get reading! Oh, and Frohe Weihnachten!
In Belarus (a European country situated between; Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia), Belarusians put a small clump of hay on the table to symbolise that Jesus was born in a manger.
This new and quirky tradition may surprise you! Recently, Japan has established a sort of tradition where, instead of the Christmas dinner we're used to, they have a KFC on Christmas day!
Gävle goat, Sweden. Since 1966 a giant goat made of wood and straw has been erected yearly, a very impressive Christmas tradition! Did you know it is 13 metres in height! Another festive ‘tradition’ is people attempting to burn it down - yep, since 1966 the Gävle goat has been burnt down 29 times! The latest destruction- 2016.
Moving on, here we have Ukraine with their interesting tradition of putting - what resemble - spider webs on their Christmas tree. The tradition goes back to a folktale about a poor widow who could not afford to decorate a tree that year. She and her children were downhearted. Legend has it that spiders in the house took pity for their sorrow and spun beautiful webs all over the tree, which the children awoke to find on Christmas morning. Spiders' webs are also considered to be lucky in Ukrainian culture.
One more shall we? Well, in South Africa their typical Christmas dinner is fried caterpillars! Totally off topic but did you know caterpillars have twelve eyes? However; it’s not just any typical caterpillars that are eaten - they are Emperor Hawk moths!
So there you have it, I hope these crazy Christmas traditions brightened your day but one question is will you be eating fried caterpillars this year or maybe you’ll put cobwebs on your christmas tree? Either way, have a very merry Christmas or in Russian; schastlivogo rozhdestva [счастливого рождества].
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