Christmas in countries

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Christmas in countries

Name: María Alejandra Huerta2"B

Many people in the United States celebrate Christmas Day on December 25. The day celebrates Jesus Christ's birth. It is often combined with customs from pre-Christian winter celebrations. Many people decorate their homes, visit family or friends and exchange gifts.

United States

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Traditions

-One Gift on Christmas Eve. -Opening one gift on Christmas Eve represents every kid's favorite Christmas tradition. -Hanging Stockings. -Topping the Christmas Tree. -Driving around to See Christmas Lights. -Secret Santa.

Traditional food

Christmas dinner features turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and vegetables. Other types of poultry, roast beef, or ham are also used. For dessert, pumpkin or apple pie, raisin pudding, Christmas pudding, or fruitcake are staples.

Dress

You can wear a dress, a skirt, shorts, or even flowy pants, which can all be paired with a number of nice tops. It's usually best to keep to light or Christmas colors for the festive season.

Traditional Decorations

People in America like to decorate the outsides of their houses with lights and sometimes even statues of Santa Claus, Snowmen and Reindeer. Some cookies and glass of milk are often left out as a snack for Santa on Christmas Eve!

Italy

Christmas in Italy begins on December 8, with the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the day on which traditionally the Christmas tree is mounted and ends on January 6, of the following year with the Epiphany (in Italian: Epifania).

-Extended Celebrations. -No meat on Christmas Eve. -Visiting the Vatican for midnight mass. -Skiing into Christmas. -Bagpipes on the piazzas. -Gifts from the good witch. -Sweet treats. -Displaying a ceppo.

Traditions

*Pasta - especially ravioli, tortellini, lasagne; *Chocolate - chocolate-covered fruits, chocolate bonbons or truffles; *Meat - veal and lamb; Vegetables; *Cake - panettone, pandoro and panforte most famously; *Coffee - it's Italy after all!

Traditional Food

Dress

Dressed like shepherds, wearing sheepskin vests, Zampognari are another unique Christmas tradition in Italy. The musicians would historically arrive from the hills to celebrate Christmas with their families but now they are musicians who carry on the tradition.

Traditional Decorations

Many of these decorations include ornaments, nativity scenes, and even food used as centerpieces for Christmas feasts. This window is located in Rome, Italy. It is an elaborate decoration that includes deer, gold balls and Christmas trees decorated with white balls and gold bows with flowing gold ribbon garlands.

Traditions

In Italian folklore, La Befana is a witch who brings good children treats on the morning of the Epiphany, January 6. But if you were bad, look out – you may wake up to a lump of coal.

Why the tree?

Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree.

Santa Claus

Santa Claus—otherwise known as Saint Nicholas or Kris Kringle—has a long history steeped in Christmas traditions was born in 3th century. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick.

Santa Claus as we all know him today was born in 1931, commissioned by the Coca-Cola. The goal was to create a character halfway between the symbolic and the real, the personification of the Christmas spirit and the happiness of Coca-Cola.

Carols

Carols used to be written and sung during all four seasons, but only the tradition of singing them at Christmas has really survived. Christmas, remembering the birth of Jesus, then started to be celebrated at the same time as the solstice, so the early Christians started singing Christian songs instead of pagan ones.

Why the decoration?

The tree itself is a “Christianization” of pagan traditions having to do with the winter solstice. These traditions include decorating with evergreen boughs. However, using candles to decorate the Christmas Tree did become a popular trend.

¡Thanks!