Christmas just passed so, as promised, I thought I'd write about some traditions and experiences of Christmas in America. But first, the meaning of Christmas.
Christians believe in a trinitarian God, that God is all at once three entities; God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit. Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birth. The actual date of Jesus's birth is still debated and many educated people believe he was more likely born in spring because of when other events in the story of His birth probably took place. Nevertheless, Christmas has traditionally been observed on December 25th. Not all Americans are Christians but a great many still celebrate Christmas as a time to visit family and reflect on the year as New Year's Eve approaches.
This year, we are in North Carolina. When we lived in California we couldn't always fly home to visit family for Christ mas but now we live 45 minutes away from Phil's sister and her husband and six year old son, 10 minutes away from his mom and dad, and five hours away from my mom and sister.
We went to a Christmas Eve church service with Phil's mom and dad. While singing Silent Night we were all holding lit candlesticks with little round papers on them to prevent the wax from spilling over. However, the paper failed and we burned ourselves many times. We were all trying to suppress our laughter while everyone around us continued to sing, oblivious of our pain.
On Christmas, we drove to his parent's home and Phil's sister and her family joined us. First we took a new family photo. This took a while since we took a few inside and outside and getting a six year old to look at the camera and smile every time was not easy. He wanted to play with the cat.
We all sat and talked for a while while dinner finished cooking. Around 1:00pm we had the big meal. It was very traditional: Turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet-potatoes (yams) with marshmallows on top, green beans with bacon, bread, and "dressing."
A note on "dressing": Phil's mom is from the south and calls it dressing. My mom is from the north and calls it stuffing. Some say the difference is that stuffing is cooked in the turkey and dressing is cooked outside of the turkey. Either way. It's a delicious mix of dried bread crumbs, butter, and herbs.
Finally it was time for presents. Phil's nephew passed out presents to everyone and we took turns opening them. Some presents are cheap and just for fun. Some are expensive and thoughtful. Clothes, specialty food and drinks, small kitchen appliances, toys, books, etc.
After the presents were finished we watched some movies and then went on our separate ways.
The day after Christmas we drove 5 hours to see my mom and sister in Virginia. We slept at my mom's house Friday night and on Saturday we opened presents and had big dinner all over again.
Having multiple Christmas gatherings is very common. Sometimes we will go to one or more Christmas parties with friends in the week before Christmas and if we have parents in multiple places we might travel to many homes to eat and exchange gifts with them. Sometimes these gatherings are all in one week or all in one day! Christmas is one of two holidays we usually travel very far to visit our families for (the other is Thanksgiving).
Christmas Slang
"Trim the tree" means to decorate the Christmas tree.
"Happy Holidays" is sometimes safer to say if you are not sure a person is a Christian.
Xmas is short for Christmas.
"Charlie Brown tree" means that the Christmas tree is very small and has few branches.
Written by Bethany
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