Christmas Around The World

This past month it has been Christmas crazy at work. It is the most fun month for us teachers to plan. This year I decided to put some geography into my Christmas lesson plans. We talked about how Catholics/Christians celebrate Christmas around the world. We also talked about how the guy we call Santa Clause here is known by different names in other countries. It was so much fun! I would pull the world globe out and show the kids which country we would talk about that day. Throughout this month I have been really happy to hear them still saying the names of different countries... Venezuela, Ghana, Japan, France, Mexico, England, Russia, so forth and so on. They will still come up to me to hear why St. Nick is called St. Nick. Why Grandfather Frost got his name. The parents would come up to me and tell me how their child talked about Christmas in the different countries sound like fun. I felt like taking a risk with these two themes because they are a little bit more advanced than for 2 and 3 year old kids, but they rose to the challenge! The parents would come up to me and tell me how their child talked about Christmas in the different countries sound like fun.

Since I decided to teach these types of things I had to do my own research because I was curious myself. I found that the most interesting country to learn about was Japan. Apparently in Japan they do not exchange lots of gifts. They may give a few, but not a whole lot. Instead they focus on Jesus and helping out those in need. They spend their Christmas day helping at homeless shelters and food kitchens, things like that. I wonder how America would change if we focused on others instead of "what I want." It was refreshing to learn about that.

In France the Catholics fast all day long on Christmas Eve. Everyone attends Midnight Mass, and after that they go home and have a big dinner and party with close friends and family. It is interesting to me to know how different they welcome Christmas. It almost makes me want to try fasting on Christmas Eve... Keyword there is almost. I have never been that great with fasting....

Mexico sounds like a fun party. After Midnight Mass certain families choose to be "host" homes while others go around a visit each house...Kind of like how we go trick-or-treating here for halloween. As the guests go door to door there are special songs that are sung between those inside the house and those waiting to enter. They do this till early in the morning. It sounds like a huge party to me.

Since it is Summer at this time of year for Ghana they tend to do most of their festivities outside. They focus more on nativity scenes and before Midnight Mass begins there are Christmas pageants. On Christmas day there usually are barbecues and pitch-in meals, like 4th of July for us. During the night they celebrate with fireworks.

In Venezuela it is also Summer on Christmas. There they have lots of church services they attend throughout Christmas Eve. Their day tends to start of with bells ringing and firecrackers being set off. They go to nine different prayer services and they end with Midnight Mass. After Mass they all share a huge dinner feast together as a parish.

These are just a few of the countries I learned about. They all sound like a lot of fun to me!