Meeting Reflections
Christmas Around The World – Daniel Silson
We were pleased to have
Father Christmas – or at least, his alter ego, Daniel Silson – visit
Willington. He gave us a brief overview of Christmas
traditions around the World.
A mid winter festival in some
form has been celebrated for over 2,000 years.
In medieval England a servant was elected as ‘Lord of Misrule’, to
coordinate the seasonal revels until twelfth night, which included much eating
and drinking. And also, at that time,
the festive season saw the poor given food boxes – the original Food
Banks?
But the Puritans cancelled
Christmas and at the beginning of the 19th century the festive
season was a low-key affair. However, by
the time that Charles Dickens published ‘A Christmas Carol’ the festivities were slowly becoming those we
know today.
The use of a decorated green tree in connection to
Christmas was brought to England by Prince Albert, having been popular in
Germany since the 1500’s. Wrest Park is believed to be the site of the
World’s oldest surviving Christmas Tree planted in 1856. The tree was brought into the mansion every
year and decorated for the festivities and then replanted. Eventually the tree grew too big to be moved
and now stays in the park all year round, but it is still decorated.
The
Christmas cracker was invented by a London sweet maker back in the 1840’s.
Apparently, his original idea was just to wrap up his tasty sweets in a twist
of fancy-coloured paper. His packages
took off when he added festive notes, paper crowns and made them go off with a
bang, becoming one of our best-known traditions.
Those familiar with Santa Claus know that he
arrives on Christmas Eve, puts the presents under the tree, eats the cookies
left out for him, and escapes through the chimney and, in the morning, children
all open their presents. This is the
tale we tell our children, but many parts of the world have different
customs. Here are only some of the
examples Daniel gave us.
In Sweden for instance, there’s the tradition
of the famed Yule goat. Some regard the
Yule goat as an invisible spirit who appeared right before Christmas to make
sure all the festive preparation was done right. Nowadays, the goat is depicted as a little
Christmas ornament made of straw and tied with red ribbon. But in one town, a large straw goat
gets erected every year at Christmastime.
However, it gets burned down pretty much every year - part of the
townspeople’s enjoyment is to see just how long the goat lasts before someone
tries to destroy it. So far, it’s
suffered 35 tragic deaths….
On
22nd December, you’ll find that the Spanish never venture far from a TV or
radio as this is the day that the Christmas lottery is drawn! Everyone buys a ticket, hoping to win ‘El
Gordo’ (the fat one). Sometimes, whole
families and villages enter together meaning that groups of people in the same
area can become very rich overnight, with the top prize usually being around
€600 million.
It’s
always a holly, jolly time in the town of Christmas in Florida. Plenty of tourists flock here to get their
holiday cards and letters stamped at the post office, because who wouldn’t want
the postmark to read ‘Christmas, FL’?
Although
Daniel did not cover every weird and wonderful tradition, this last one is
definitely the weirdest. In December
1974, KFC Japan created its ‘Kentucky for Christmas’ campaign, promoting fried
chicken as the perfect Christmas meal.
And now eating KFC food as
a Christmas meal is a huge tradition in Japan!
After all, what could be more Christmassy than strolling along Tokyo’s streets,
illuminated by beautiful Christmas lights, with a boneless bucket in hand?
And
to prove the point, we had KFC buckets delivered to finish the meeting along
with our mulled wine and mince pies!
Sue Harland