Catholic Holiday Traditions Around the World

My husband and I base our 23 year marriage on family, parenting, education and tradition. We practice attachment parenting and home-schooled our children. As a Catholic family, holiday traditions revolve around Advent and Christmas. Here are some of those traditions.

I developed an Advent unit. For the four weeks before Christmas, ee explored the history of holiday traditions of other cultures. We would "travel" to other countries by exploring literature, books, food, customs, art, music and movies. to different holiday celebrations around the world. We admired their art and architecture, especially the cathedrals and religious art. We read folktales of holidays in many lands. We listened to hymns and folk songs; Mazurkas from Poland, carols from Germany. 'Stille Nacht' and 'O Tannenbaum' we learned German and sang in nursing homes We memorized the Latin hymns 'Ave Maria' 'Adestes Fideles' and the 'O' antiphons for midnight mass.

We tasted foods and made treats from cannoli from Italy, lebkuchen and from Germany and patisseries from France. We explored holiday designs and decorations; Arabic mosaics, Byzantine stained glass and Russian nested dolls. We made traditional crafts from many lands: Peru, Lapland and Korea. For our religious observances, we followed the Advent season, but we added other cultural traditions.

December 6 is St. Nicholas Day. The children of Holland leave their shoes out for St Nick on his white stallion to place goodies in; we have done this every year since.

December 12 is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We love to read the "The Lady of Guadalupe" by Tomie de Paola. We have a Mexican fiesta and make ojos de dios (God's eyes) with yarn and two sticks. We listen to lovely Mexican folk songs. If we are lucky, our godmother, Manuela comes over and tells us of Mexico.

December 13 is Swedish St. Lucia day. Tradition says a great famine raged through Scandinavia. It was a cold dark desolate time. Lucia, a young girl prepared warm sweet bread and hot drink and brought it to the starving villagers. As she walked, she appeared wreathed in light. Each year, the eldest girl child dresses in a white robe and wears a wreath of candles on her head, bring holiday sweet bread and hot cocoa to her family and neighbors.

Even if you don't home-school, explore some of the wondrous holiday traditions from other lands with your family. Make some memories!