International Living Postcards– your daily escape
Christmas Day, 2006
Baltimore, MD
Over the years, International Living contributors, editors, correspondents, and friends have sent us postcards detailing Christmas traditions around the world. We’ve chosen from among the holiday tales in our archives (and some sent to us this week) and share our favorites with you below.
Please accept our best wishes for a Merry Christmas, wherever in the world you find yourself celebrating.
Warmly,
Kathleen Peddicord and the entire far-flung staff of International Living
P.S. In the spirit of the season, through Dec. 31, 2006, please accept our gift to you: 20% discounts (or more) off every title in our International Living Library. To take advantage of our Special Holiday Sale, follow this link to our discounted bookstore.
Christmas around the IL world
Jingle Bells in Bangkok
– Steenie Harvey, Bangkok, Thailand
Who the heck wants to hear I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas in temperatures of 90 degrees Fahrenheit plus?
Not me, but Bangkok isn’t the place to escape the now relentlessly global Christmas sell. Thailand might well be a Buddhist country, but its capital is lit up and decorated like the proverbial Christmas tree…thousands of which are shimmering away in their blue, gold, and silver glory.
Much to the annoyance of anybody who detests enforced Christmas cheer, hotels and shopping complexes continuously blast your eardrums with yuletide songs. Expat restaurants boast special seasonal menus at horrific prices.
Locals with kiddies–and more than a few without–go out at night to gawp at the lights. One draw is Central World Plaza Mall which boasts what is allegedly Southeast Asia’s biggest Christmas tree–it is huge. Another stop-off on the yuletide trail is Peninsula Plaza whose oddities include dwarves prancing above a huge picture of the Thai king, a gingerbread cottage, and a reindeer barn. Naturally there’s a Santa’s Grotto inside the mall, too.
But apart from the odd Away in a Manger carol and the occasional angel topping a tree, the overall impression is that Christmas here is an out-and out secular shopping festival.
An article in the Bangkok Trader advises male farangs (foreigners) that the "Thai Girlfriend" will always appreciate expensive perfume as a Christmas gift. And also that it should be wrapped in high-quality gold or yellow paper–the royal colors.
Butchering the Hog and Passing the Siete Pingas–Christmas in Cuenca
– Lee Harrison, Cuenca, Ecuador
Thunk! From over by a neighbor’s driveway, we hear the sounds of a hatchet on a chopping block as two indigenous women finish butchering a large hog on the sidewalk. Several tents are set up where people stand over steaming kettles of soup, corn, and pork, as a mysterious brown bottle with home-brewed cane liquor is passed from person to person. Everyone greets everyone with a kiss on the cheek.
It’s Christmas in southern Ecuador, and the neighborhood is preparing for Pase del Niño.
After a holy procession passes through the street we return to the cul-de-sac where we began, and a priest steps up to celebrate Mass. After communion, we feast on the roast pork, corn, and soup. That mysterious brown bottle appears again, and even the priest partakes (in moderation) of the "siete pingas," a term better left un-translated.
Austria’s Firey Christmas Tradition
– From "The World’s Best"
Each year at Christmas, young men from the Austrian mountain town of Landeck climb to the top of the mountain, where they light huge bonfires that can be seen for miles. Then they set fire to circles of wood dipped in tar and send them rolling down the hill. The blazing circles are quite a sight against the black night sky. Finally, the daredevils ski downhill, racing the fiery disks at breakneck speed.
Rum Butter
– Keith Kellett, Cumbria, England
If you’ve ever celebrated Christmas in Cumbria, in the northwest of England, you’ve tried this confection already. It dates back to the days of the pirates, who brought sugar cane to these shores from the West Indies.
Demerara is said to be the best sugar for making rum butter, but you can make it yourself using any fruit of the cane.
Mix butter and sugar, add rum, stir well, sprinkle with grated nutmeg, and stand in a cool, dry place. Spread generously on thin slices of brown bread or crackers. I’ve even had it spread on a slice of Christmas cake.
Christmas in the Canaries
– Joe Cawley, the Canary Islands
Canarians start their Christmas celebrations on Nochebuena (Christmas Eve), when families get together for a big meal of suckling pig or barbecued meat served with sweet yams and sausage rolls…followed by assorted nuts, turrones (fudge bars), polverones (powder cakes), and mazapan (marzipan shapes). Navidad (Christmas Day) is not really a holiday, but more a recovery day, like Boxing Day in the UK and Ireland. Presents aren’t exchanged until Los Reyes (Three Kings Day) on Jan. 6.
A Merry Christmas in Medellin
– Robert Davis, Medallin, Colombia
Christmas time and the Medellin River, which cuts through the center of the city, is lit up in a blaze of sparkling lights and a floral display. Medellin is South America’s flower capital. Roses, gardenias, carnations, and other flowers are shipped from here to other parts of the world daily. Mention visiting Medellin and you are sure to be met with a curious stare.
"For a long period of time, we have had to face accusations and all kinds of negative remarks regarding Medellin," admits Medellin’s Mayor, Sergio Fajardo Valderrama. "We have had to struggle with the label of the most violent city in the world, the city of the cartels. It is true that we had to face the narcobusiness, an unpredictable phenomena no one could have ever foreseen. But we dealt with it and we still do, just like the rest of the country, and like the consumer countries do."
While Pablo Escobar, the infamous drug baron killed 12 years ago, continues to command much of the foreign media’s imagination, Colombians would prefer people to think of the Medellin of today and tomorrow.
Why would I want to spend Christmas in Medellin? For me it is the people or paisas, as they are affectionately called. Paisas are the backbone of Colombia, an unflinchingly honest, polite, and hospitable people.
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