By Sophia Wolfe
One thing that I love about HOL is its diversity; there are so many people with different nationalities working together, and more importantly, having fun together. I thought that it would be fun if we could learn something new about each other this Christmas. That is why I asked few HOL members to answer a few questions about their Christmas traditions and experiences. Amy Lupin, Fumei Shirokuro, Prof. Scarlet Leslie and Silmarien Szilagyi were nice enough to help me, so here is what they had to say!
1. What is Christmas like in your family? If you don't celebrate Christmas, do you celebrate something else? If so what?
Amy: My family doesn't usually celebrate Chanukkah, however I have celebrated it several times - so unfortunately I don't know as much about Chanukkah as I probably should.
Fumei: Umh Christmas in my family... well, Christmas in my family is having a nice and easy-going few days. I’ll start off with saying that we celebrate Christmas Eve, and the first and second day of Christmas. In the past, we would go to the church on Christmas Eve. Nowadays we don’t go anymore. I think I haven’t been to Church for the past 11 to 12 years. But well that’s not the point. Christmas is a holiday where we celebrate together with the family. And most of the time that would just be my Gran, my parents and my siblings (and possible boy/girlfriends). On the first day of Christmas, we have a huge meal with 4 to 5 courses or more (we make this ourselves). For the last few years we’ve also done a Secret Santa on the first day of Christmas. In total, we just hang around together and be with each other during this day.
On the second day of Christmas it’s somewhat the same. But during this day we are a bit looser and we don’t have to really attend anything. So if we want we can go out, hang with friends, or just do things we like. And sometimes we watch a movie together. But well it just depends on the plans.
We also celebrate Christmas Eve together. We mostly do this with a bread meal in the evening.
This bread meal would have all different kind of Dutch food. So we would go from bread, to Dutch Rusk, sausage rolls, meat buns (worstenbroodjes) and most of the time we would have some raisin bread. So on Christmas Eve we have a ‘light’ meal.
So that’s how I celebrate Christmas with my family.
Scarlet: My family always spends Christmas at a ski resort in Vermont. We started going when my youngest brother was only one year old. (He didn't start skiing until he was three.) It is a six hour drive from New Jersey to Vermont, so once we all got older, we began to take turns driving. Throughout the 16-17 years we've been skiing, the resort has upgraded its logo and some of us tried snowboarding, but we are always with family for a white Christmas.
Sil: Christmas in my family is sort of a mix of Hungarian and American traditions, mostly because we do have my cousin's non-Hungarian boyfriend with us most of the time. We have the traditional szaloncukor (parlor candy), which is a chocolate-covered candy filled with a variety of things--jelly, caramel, chocolate, coconut, etc. They're wrapped in pretty, colorful paper, so we hang some on the tree, instead of the American candy canes. We bake
1. What is Christmas like in your family? If you don't celebrate Christmas, do you celebrate something else? If so what?
Amy: My family doesn't usually celebrate Chanukkah, however I have celebrated it several times - so unfortunately I don't know as much about Chanukkah as I probably should.
Fumei: Umh Christmas in my family... well, Christmas in my family is having a nice and easy-going few days. I’ll start off with saying that we celebrate Christmas Eve, and the first and second day of Christmas. In the past, we would go to the church on Christmas Eve. Nowadays we don’t go anymore. I think I haven’t been to Church for the past 11 to 12 years. But well that’s not the point. Christmas is a holiday where we celebrate together with the family. And most of the time that would just be my Gran, my parents and my siblings (and possible boy/girlfriends). On the first day of Christmas, we have a huge meal with 4 to 5 courses or more (we make this ourselves). For the last few years we’ve also done a Secret Santa on the first day of Christmas. In total, we just hang around together and be with each other during this day.
On the second day of Christmas it’s somewhat the same. But during this day we are a bit looser and we don’t have to really attend anything. So if we want we can go out, hang with friends, or just do things we like. And sometimes we watch a movie together. But well it just depends on the plans.
We also celebrate Christmas Eve together. We mostly do this with a bread meal in the evening.
This bread meal would have all different kind of Dutch food. So we would go from bread, to Dutch Rusk, sausage rolls, meat buns (worstenbroodjes) and most of the time we would have some raisin bread. So on Christmas Eve we have a ‘light’ meal.
So that’s how I celebrate Christmas with my family.
Scarlet: My family always spends Christmas at a ski resort in Vermont. We started going when my youngest brother was only one year old. (He didn't start skiing until he was three.) It is a six hour drive from New Jersey to Vermont, so once we all got older, we began to take turns driving. Throughout the 16-17 years we've been skiing, the resort has upgraded its logo and some of us tried snowboarding, but we are always with family for a white Christmas.
Sil: Christmas in my family is sort of a mix of Hungarian and American traditions, mostly because we do have my cousin's non-Hungarian boyfriend with us most of the time. We have the traditional szaloncukor (parlor candy), which is a chocolate-covered candy filled with a variety of things--jelly, caramel, chocolate, coconut, etc. They're wrapped in pretty, colorful paper, so we hang some on the tree, instead of the American candy canes. We bake