Most of us likely have traditions we adhere to around the holidays. Decorate a Christmas tree, bake cookies (and leave some for Santa), hang stockings, drink eggnog, attend a parade, yada-yada-yada. You know the drill. You’re probably not surprised to learn that other cultures have their own holiday traditions, and sorry-not-sorry, but some of them seem weird as deck the halls with boughs of holly.
For instance, in Japan, eating Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas Day is incredibly popular. In fact, Christmas season is KFC’s busiest time of the year in Japan. Because Christmas isn’t a national Japanese holiday, in the 1970s, KFC started promoting the “Party Barrel” to celebrate the festive season and sell buckets full of pressure-fried chicken seasoned with 11 top-secret herbs and spices. The restaurant chain also dresses its franchises’ life-size Colonel Sanders statues as Santa Claus.
Catalonian children engage in a tradition called Caga Tió. Beginning on Dec. 8, a log with a face, legs, and a red hat is set up, and children are tasked with feeding the log dried fruits, nuts, and water, as well as keeping it warm with a blanket for the next two and a half weeks. The night before Christmas, the kids of Barcelona gather around the log and beat it with sticks and sing the Caga Tió song, which translates thusly: “Poo log/ hazelnuts and nougat/ do not drop herrings/ they are too salty/ poop nougats that are better.” The kids leave the room and pray to Caga Tió to bring them gifts, and when they return, they find the log has pooped out presents. I shit you not! If you want to join the fun, buy your poop log kit at thechristmaspooplog.com.
The Gävle Goat of Gävle, Sweden, isn’t the oldest strange tradition, but it is the world’s biggest straw goat. It started as a quirky advertising gimmick thanks to ad consultant Stig Gavlén in 1966, but now it’s constructed every Christmas season in Slottstorget, Gävle, and stands about 43 feet tall.
In Norway, the Christmas tradition is to hide your brooms lest evil spirits that come out on Christmas Eve steal them.
Canada’s post office has an official address for letters to Santa: Santa Claus, North Pole, Canada, HOH OHO.
In Greenland, the traditional holiday meal consists of kiviak (seal skin stuffed with fermented auks, a small seabird) and mattak (whale blubber, skin attached), which is traditionally served to women by men.
In Ukraine, Christmas trees are decorated with cobwebs and spiders because of a folktale about a generous spider that spun beautiful presents for a poor family that let the spider stay warm in their home.
In the Netherlands, instead of stockings, children leave out their shoes to be filled with presents, replacing the carrots, apples, and hay they leave in their shoes for Sinterklaas’ horse to eat.
In the Czech Republic, young single women toss their shoes over the shoulders at Christmas time. She stands in front of a home’s doorway facing away from the house, tosses a shoe behind her, and if it lands with the toe pointed toward the door, she’ll be married the next year.
On Dec. 23, in Oaxaca, Mexico, they celebrate the Night of Radishes, a tradition purportedly started thanks to an overabundance of radishes that two friars brought to a Christmas market. In 1897, the city’s then mayor started an annual radish carving competition that continues to this day.
In Portugal, families set an extra plate at the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals to remember and honor dead relatives. The tradition, known as consoda, is meant to bring good luck. The extra place setting is called alminhas a penar, or souls of the dead.
In Caracas, Venezuela, the roads are closed to traffic between Dec. 16 through the 24, so people can roller-skate to church.
A Finland tradition is a game of “find the almond” in your traditional cinnamon-topped rice and milk porridge breakfast. Whoever finds the almond is thought to be granted good luck until the next Christmas, and in some families, the finder gets an extra present.
In Australia, Dec. 25 falls in the middle of summer, so yuletide beach parties are common. In Mooloolaba, Queensland, Santa sometimes makes an appearance either by boat or parasail, and hands out candy to the kids.
Meanwhile in wintery Ireland, it’s tradition to take a Christmas Day swim in the ocean. It happens in a number of places, but Forty Foot Rock is a favorite for people to jump from into the frigid sea, often for charity.
In Denmark, they throw and break dishes for good luck, so if you find broken dishes on your doorstep, good for you.
In Spain, wearing a brand-new pair of red underwear on New Year’s Eve is supposedly lucky.
And let’s not forget Krampus, Santa’s evil, ugly, hairy counterpart who originated in Germany, Austria, and Hungary. Instead of rewarding good little boys and girls, the devil-like creature frightens the bad kids, and if you’re really naughty, he’ll throw you in his sack and cart you straight to hell. Merry Christmas!
Contact New Times Senior Staff Writer Glen Starkey at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Nov 21 – Dec 1, 2024.
