Christmas customs around world shared by people now in Diocese

Many American Christmas customs began in other countries. Four people who now live in the Albany Diocese but who hail from other nations shared with The Evangelist some holiday traditions of their homelands.

CHINA

Sister Cecelia Marie Therese, a Little Sister of the Poor who lives in Latham, grew up in Hong Kong, where Christmas celebrations centered on midnight Mass and looking at colorful lights.

"There really is no downtown in Hong Kong," she said. "It's so large that the entire island could be called 'downtown.' It's known around the world as the 'forest of concrete.' There is no room to grow anything on Hong Kong, so there are no live trees in homes during the Christmas season. It would be far too expensive."

Sister Cecelia's family always had a small tree, but it was artificial.

While the western influence of Great Britain, which held the island from the middle of the 19th century to the late 20th, is strong in Hong Kong, Christmas traditions do not revolve around food or family gatherings.

"We do those things for the Chinese New Year, which is our biggest holiday," Sister Cecilia said. "Christmas is a quiet celebration.

"Each year, we would all go to midnight Mass. When we returned home, there would be a wrapped gift for each of us on our beds. I always wondered how that happened since my parents attended church with us."

CONGO

For Ella Claude Ndalla, a senior finance major at Siena College in Loudonville, Christmas is all about going to church.

In her hometown of Brazzaville, families go to church late on Christmas Eve. Santa Claus makes an appearance at the church to hand out gifts of food, dolls or little cars. Older children put on plays about the Nativity.

After Mass, everyone starts to celebrate, sometimes all night long.

"All the families stay at home on Christmas Day," she continued. "We eat a traditional Christmas meal of baked chicken or turkey with rice and plantains with tomato sauce. We sometimes have cassava, a white vegetable similar to potatoes. We also have lots of tropical fruits, like papaya, mango and patient fruit. These take the place of cookies and candy, which we don't have: It's too hot to bake there at Christmastime."

After dinner, gifts are exchanged among family members, but they aren't as elaborate as presents in America, she said. Most gifts are small toys for young children or food for the family.

When she was 12, Ms. Ndalla moved with her family to France. She calls that country her home, but "celebrating our Congolese traditions remains important because it brings us great joy and happiness," she told The Evangelist.

"Welcoming the baby Jesus into our home each year on Christmas Eve is a very important custom. We string up stars and lights all around the house. My parents have always tried to uphold the traditions of the Congo kingdom."

ENGLAND

Rev. Anthony Barratt, pastor of Annunciation Church in Ilion, hails from Bromley, England. He treasures many Christmas traditions of his homeland, such as Yorkshire Ginger Tea Cake and Yorkshire Gold tea. He also continues to keep the 12 days of Christmas, English-style.

"In English homes, there is always a basket filled with ornaments near the tree," he noted. "Throughout the 12 days of Christmas, visitors are asked to pick an ornament and add it to the tree. That means they are welcome to be a part of the festivities of the family.

"In England, Christmas is very much about tradition, and that includes food. We have Christmas cake, which has marzipans and some dried fruit. It's a condensed cake that is frosted with a hard white icing. Other decorations go on the icing, like snowmen and other Christmas figures."

Other traditional foods include mince pie and figgie pudding, which Father Barratt said is "often made the day after Christmas for the next year."

Because England has no Thanksgiving Day, Christmas is the quintessential family holiday of the year, he said.

"The family always gathers at Christmas, and everyone goes to church," he said. "Even people that don't otherwise attend church during the year go to services on Christmas. Midnight Mass is actually celebrated at midnight and often by candlelight."

To preserve his memories of Christmas, Father Barratt began a tradition of his own last year in Ilion.

"A week or two before Christmas, I decorate the rectory in Christmas finery and set the table for English tea," he said. "I have an open house and invite parishioners to have some tea and cakes. This is a fairly common practice throughout England for the holidays."

LATVIA

Liga Alpe-Luka, a junior at Siena College, said that Christmas Eve is the major time of celebration in Latvia.

Her memories revolve around the appearance of Ziemassvetku Vecitia, a Santa Claus-like figure who always appears late in the night after Christmas Eve dinner but before Christmas morning.

"One year, my grandpa came to my house," she recalled. "I remember thinking he was the Santa Claus."

In Latvia, decorating a tree is a Russian tradition. Ms. Alpe-Luka said that influence was very much a part of her childhood.

"We always decorated the tree with many different colored lights," she explained. "Now that we are free [of the former Soviet Union], Latvian people have changed the tradition. We now put solid colored lights on our trees. My family has white lights."

In Latvia, gifts are exchanged at exactly midnight, after the traditional Christmas Eve meal has ended.

"Our Christmas Eve dinner is always pork and potatoes with gravy," she said. "We have peas, too; that is the tradition. After dinner, we eat dessert. Klingeris is my family's favorite. It's a sweetbread that has nuts and raisins.

"Afterwards, we open our presents. Each person goes individually to the tree, gets the gift and takes it to the person who is to receive it. That person must quickly think of a song or a poem to tell about the gift-giver. People pretend they do not know who will give them a gift, but they always know, so you can get a poem or song ready. We have so much fun doing this."

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