Christmas dominates the winter holiday season in America, with decorated front lawns, Rudolph inflatables and string lights lining rows of homes; ornate Christmas trees everywhere you look with a perfect mess of presents at the base; light shows; mall Santas; and more. A hearty dinner with friends and family and drinking hot cocoa and eggnog by the fireplace is the typical American Christmas. But how does the rest of the world celebrate the winter holidays?
Stephanie Rodriguez, biology senior and president of the Association of Latin American Students, said that Christmas traditions can vary from place to place in Latin America. The differences in celebration between the various Latin American countries includes what constitutes a typical Christmas meal: tamales for Rodriguez’ Mexican family and roasted pork for her Puerto Rican side.
“[In] Mexico …it’s like a whole day thing …, making food [with] the whole family — aunts, uncles, cousins, everybody participates,” Rodriguez said. “For Puerto Rico … I feel like their Christmas is obviously a little more tropical. They’re used to everybody celebrating together out in the street.”
“For Puerto Rico … I feel like their Christmas is obviously a little more tropical. They’re used to everybody celebrating together out in the street.”
Rodriguez said in comparison to American Christmas, south of the U.S. border, Christmas is a longer holiday that generally lasts two days with a greater emphasis on Christmas Eve than Christmas day. She said her parents would invite their neighbors over to celebrate Christmas in a Latin American style to rave reviews.
“My next door neighbors … where my parents live, they’re all American,” Rodriguez said. “They’ve all come over for Christmases before and say how much fun it is, and [how] they wish their family did stuff like [us] or was closer like [ours].”
Abdullah Chaudhry, software engineering senior and Pakistani Student Association president, said that Pakistan has no celebration of Christmas because it is a religious holiday based in Christianity, while the country is majority Muslim. However, there are small Christian communities in Pakistan that do celebrate Christmas and some Pakistani Muslims see the holiday as a way to spend time with family.
Chaudhry said that the celebratory equivalent for Pakistani Muslims is Eid. Muslims celebrate two Eids each year: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Eid al-Fitr is celebrated at the end of Ramadan, while Eid al-Adha is celebrated on the tenth day of the final month of the Islamic calendar. He said holidays like Eid and Christmas are a wonderful time of year as people get together and celebrate, even if it is not within their tradition to observe a particular holiday. Chaudry also said that it would be nice to have celebrations like Eid recognized as public holidays so students can have a day off and celebrate.
“Fasting during the 30 days of Ramadan and you go to classes, you go to work — that in itself is pretty tiring,” Chaudhry said. “That kind of takes out the joy from the celebration. An excused absence for all of us so that even non-Muslims get to enjoy it with us how we celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving with them, they can see our culture and how we celebrate things so that we can have a well-gelled community together.”
“An excused absence for all of us so that even non-Muslims get to enjoy it with us how we celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving with them, they can see our culture and how we celebrate things so that we can have a well-gelled community together.”
Dharmit Shah, IT management graduate student and Indian Student Association president, said that in his home city of Mumbai, India, Christmas is celebrated in a similar way to the U.S. with mall Santas, Christmas light shows, a huge feast and secret Santa gift exchanges between classmates, friends and coworkers. However, he said this type of celebration is only present in India’s big cities and not so much in its remote parts.
“I would say it’s actually a big celebration for New Year and Christmas in India,” Shah said. “In city areas it’s a completely different celebration and its cultural differences are not there. Many people are just intermingling with each other. Everyone is excited about it. People just need a reason to celebrate, a reason to party.”