Christmas Customs Around The World

1 Dec 2014

Christmas Customs Around The World

The presents are wrapped, the mince pies are ready for Santa, and the turkey’s about to be carved; sounds like the average British Christmas doesn’t it?

With the season of goodwill now upon us, we find ourselves turning to our familiar traditions without a second thought.

But what does Christmas look like for some of our international friends? They may not hang mistletoe or hide a coin in the Christmas pudding, but they still celebrate the festive season in their own unique way. Let’s take a look at some of the Christmas customs and traditions from around the globe:

India

With traditional Christmas trees in short supply, Christians in India decorate mango trees instead and use mango leaves to add festive cheer to their homes.

Scandinavia

A gnome-like character, called Tomte in Sweden and Nisse in Norway, is believed to protect barns and deliver presents. So each Christmas eve, children leave out a bowl of porridge for him.

Ukraine

Forget the tinsel, in the Ukraine people decorate their Christmas trees with spider web decorations. This is because of a legend that says a magic spider once visited a poor family at Christmas and turned all their spiders’ webs into gold and silver.

Mexico

The Festival of the Radishes takes place in the run-up to Christmas and sees farming people carve radishes into human figures, including those from nativity scenes.

As for us here at City Legal, we will be celebrating but not too hard, as we want to keep our great translation and interpreting service ready for you all over the festive season. Our Project Managers will be working from home, in between bites of mince pie, but will be happy to help if you wish to email us. Our opening times are as follows:

24th December: Email Service 08:00-17:00
29th-31st December: Email Service 08:00-17:00
2nd January: Email Service 08:00-17:00
5th January: Office open at 08:00, normal service resumes

However you celebrate your Christmas, we’d like to thank you for your support throughout 2014 and we wish each one of our clients, suppliers, and friends a very Merry Christmas.