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International Christmas Traditions to Celebrate at Home

By Mariah

It is fascinating to learn about how people celebrate holidays. It can be a fun holiday activity to try out traditions from other countries and cultures, but it can also be a little bit overwhelming. In this post, I'll share the tradition and a simple adaptation to make it easy to celebrate with your family.

Some of these traditions were taken from Global Road Warrior, an online database that is available to Provo City Library users. To access Global Road Warrior, go to the Provo Library homepage->Learn->Research Databases->Travel->Global Road Warrior. From there, you can pick from hundreds of countries to learn about. You can access this database to do your own research and learn about Christmas traditions around the world on your own.

Germany
On Christmas Eve, a pickle ornament is hidden in the tree. The first child to find it on Christmas morning gets an extra present from Santa or good luck for the next year. If you don't have a pickle ornament, you can adapt this tradition by drawing a pickle on a piece of paper. One person should leave the room while the paper pickle is hidden. When they return, you can sing a Christmas carol while they look for the pickle. The louder you sing, the closer they are to the pickle. Take turns and play as many rounds as you would like.

Japan
In Japan, on Christmas Day, they go to KFC. To do this tradition with your family, you could go to KFC (not sponsored) or make fried chicken together at home.

Argentina
In many South American countries like Argentina, they light off fireworks for Christmas. Since Argentina is in the Southern Hemisphere, they get to have Christmas during the summer. They enjoy the warmth and the fireworks late into the night. Because it isn't legal to do fireworks here until New Year's, you could celebrate this tradition by watching a firework show on YouTube in the warmth of your own home.

Democratic Republic of the Congo
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, they do not exchange wrapped gifts in the traditional way that we know. Instead, they exchange fruits and vegetables! You could observe this tradition at home by eating an array of fruits and vegetables. It might also be fun to go grocery shopping together and pick a few fruits and vegetables that you have never tried before.

Denmark
In Scandinavian countries, they make a giant bowl of rice pudding. They shell and chop up almonds to put in the pudding, but they put in one whole almond too. Whoever gets the almond gets a prize that is usually yummy chocolate or a sweet treat. You can totally make your own rice pudding at home. If you're intimidated by making rice pudding like I am, you can buy pudding cups of rice pudding, print out a picture of an almond, and tape it to the bottom of the pudding cup. Whoever picks the pudding cup with the almond picture gets a prize. 

Australia
Australia also gets to celebrate Christmastime during the summer months, so they can go to the beach on Christmas Day. It is not uncommon to see families eating lunch at the beach to celebrate the holiday. At home, you could put on your swimsuits, spread out beach towels, and enjoy an indoor beach picnic. You can even turn on some ocean sounds from YouTube to add to the ambiance. 

Iceland
Jolabokaflod, an Icelandic Christmas tradition, translates to "Christmas Book Flood." Books are gifted on Christmas Eve, and they spend the evening by the fire enjoying their new books. To observe this tradition at home, you can check out holiday books from the library and read them together at home. There are a lot of fireplace videos and apps that can add to the coziness of Jolabokaflod.
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