MY GIFT TO YOU—GET YOUR FREE EBOOK—“THE 5-DAY JOURNEY TO CULTURAL AWARENESS”!
Our house is multi-lingual and multi-cultural. At any given time, you may hear English, French, Arabic, or Spanish floating through the air.
As a cross-cultural family, we live “across languages,” “across cultures,” and “across borders.”
It doesn’t feel strange or weird. It feels normal and natural.
We are constantly “weaving cultures” in our home.
In all the places we have lived, we have picked up cultural threads to weave into our family’s global tapestry. It’s all the more beautiful because of the diverse, colorful, unique threads that we have collected on our global adventures around the world.
We especially see this at Christmas time.
It’s not a fight or struggle in how we will celebrate Christmas as a cross-cultural family. We have learned to be culturally aware of each others’ cultural traditions and to respect them—as well as the cultural traditions of the land where we live. We blend it all together, choosing to break down barriers and build cultural bridges instead.
This is what “weaving Christmas cultures” in our house looks like . . .
My American Family’s Traditions We Have Adopted
—Put up our Christmas tree and decorations on Thanksgiving night
—Hang Christmas tree ornaments that I have collected since childhood
—Watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
—Make Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve
—Open one present each on Christmas Eve
—Enjoy a late breakfast on Christmas morning with American pancakes, German pancakes, or cinnamon rolls
—Have a late afternoon Christmas Day lunch—turkey, ham, Grandma Esther’s creamed corn casserole, etc.
—Hang our Christmas stockings on the fireplace mantle
—Sit out Christmas cookies and milk for Santa and his reindeer, with a special little note to Santa
Vincent’s French Family’s Traditions We Have Adopted
—Have a late Christmas Eve dinner with escargots, smoked salmon, foie gras (goose liver pâté), bûche de Noël (Christmas “log cake”), champagne . . .
—Sit out our shoes for Père Noël to fill
—Make a Galette des Rois (“King’s Cake) on “King’s Day” (January 6)
Other Adopted Christmas Traditions From Spain
—Go to church as a family on Christmas Eve at our English-speaking International church
—Visit Spanish belens (nativity scenes)
—Sing “Feliz Navidad” (“Merry Christmas” in Spanish) and pronounce it semi-correctly
—Go on a family Christmas vacation on the Spanish Mediterranean Sea
—Celebrate the coming of “The Three Kings” to deliver children gifts on January 6
—Visit Plaza del Sol in Madrid and see the beautiful Christmas lights
I don’t know where we will be living next Christmas, but wherever we are, we’ll be weaving Christmas cultures!
Merry Christmas to All the World!
—THE CULTURAL STORY-WEAVER
MY GIFT TO YOU—GET YOUR FREE EBOOK—“THE 5-DAY JOURNEY TO CULTURAL AWARENESS”!
LET’S WEAVE CULTURES!
How do you celebrate Christmas in your house? It is a mono-cultural celebration or a blend of several different cultures?
We invite you to tell us your own cultural stories and global adventures . . . as you engage with the world, breaking down barriers, building bridges, and “weaving cultures!” Write about them in the comment box below.
