by Savannah Weishaar
Parkland College is home to students from all over the world. Many of these international students are preparing to travel home for winter break to celebrate Christmas with their families. But how exactly will they be celebrating? Parkland students from England, El Salvador, and Brazil provide some insight into their cultures this holiday season.
Food is an important thing in many cultures, especially during the holidays. So first and foremost the food needs to be discussed. When questioned about typical food in their country during Christmas all three students had one thing in common– turkey. It seems that just as the American holiday of Thanksgiving is ending in the United States, the food migrates to other countries.
Georgia Ward from Bristol, England said, “The food is pretty similar to what we had at Thanksgiving.” While Mayra Sosa from San Salvador, El Salvador said, “Christmas for us is like Thanksgiving.” So it seems safe to say they enjoyed Thanksgiving–or the food at least. However there were some differences in the Christmas meal from Brazil.
“We eat turkey, chicken, sometimes barbecue, rice, kind of like a vegetable mayo, ‘pudim’– I don’t know how you guys call ‘pudim’…we eat some passion fruit dessert.” said Beatriz Meneghin who is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. To clarify, ‘vegetable mayo’ is exactly what it sounds like–mayonnaise with vegetables mixed in. In addition, the thing called ‘pudim’ is comparable to flan.
Next matter of importance–traditions. These are very different from one another as well as the United States. However, there is a little overlap between El Salvador and Brazil seeing as they are both Latin American countries.
England’s holiday season is very similar to the United States despite two factors–Christmas Crackers and Boxing Day.
When questioned about Christmas Crackers Ward said, “You do it before you eat and they’re these little cardboard things and you hold either end and pull them apart with someone else. Inside of them there is always a crown–lots of different colored crowns–and you wear them. Then they have a really bad Christmas joke and everyone reads theirs out loud. Then they always have a toy or something like a bottle opener or mini cards.”
Ward found when mentioning Boxing Day to American friends and instructors at Parkland she got some pretty strange looks, “I realized no one knew what I was talking about. We have Boxing Day. It’s the 26th of December … I had to look it up because I didn’t actually know what it was. It’s just a national holiday, so everyone gets the day off work. It started because that’s the day servants would have a day off and their bosses would give them a single present in a box. So that’s why it’s called Boxing Day.” In short, while Americans have to go back to work, the English get an extra day of Christmas.
El Salvador and Brazil have some different traditions as well.
Sosa said, “On the 24th we stay up and go to a family members house. We reunite every single family there… we open the gifts at 12. The dinner is the 24th, we call it ‘Noche Buena’, 25 is christmas–Navidad. On “Noche Buena” before the dinner–every single family goes to the church because there is a service. Then we go to a family members house, we eat, and between that time we do fireworks. We save the biggest one for 12.”
While children in the US are sleeping awaiting Santa, kids in El Salvador are already opening gifts, “They don’t go to sleep. They think Santa comes very fast and then the gifts are there. They are playing or doing fireworks and then their parents say ‘Oh Santa came!’ and there are the gifts.”
Brazilians seem to follow a similar tradition, Meneghin said, “The whole family comes together. We start on the 24th and when it’s midnight we hug everybody, we say ‘Merry Christmas!’ then we go eat and exchange the presents.”
Some of these foods or traditions may seem strange to Americans, but it is important to remember that things done here seem strange to international students too.
Meneghin said, “Here you guys have socks for Santa and the presents go there– I don’t know why.” When told that the ‘socks for Santa’ were called ‘stockings’ she said, “It is not normal in Brazil. We don’t have stockings.”
So while everyone may eat different foods such as vegetable mayo or celebrate in different ways like Christmas Crackers, one thing is clear– family is what it’s all about.