A Different Way to Think About the Holidays and Genealogy
Hello everyone! How’s it going this week? I hope all is well and that the holiday plans aren’t stressing you out too much! Do you have plans for Thanksgiving? I think that’s what I love about the holidays. It’s the family get together with all of us humans. Nobody’s perfect and that’s what makes a story. I bet everyone has a juicy story or two to tell about the family around the holidays. I don’t mean the stories that will get you in trouble, but the ones about the dog ate the turkey or the one Thanksgiving where NOTHING turned out right and we call it Thanksageddon. Those stories are awesome! It’s what makes us human and that’s genealogy!
Make those memories count by recording them somehow. You can do this by making photos, writing stories or recipes, recording video, etc. I plan to record those precious real life moments on my phone using my voice recorder app. It’s so simple to use and great for recording. The holidays make me crave those cozy family moments because it doesn’t happen very often for us.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what to write in this post and I think I want to go on a tangent about Scandinavian holiday culture for just a bit. Obviously, there is no Thanksgiving in Scandinavia because it’s an American holiday. However, I’ve been reading articles on what they do for Christmas in preparation for my own Christmas festivities.
I’ve learned that the Danes love to have Christmas for three days! They start Christmas Eve with a big dinner and share it with the immediate family. Then on Christmas Day, they have another big dinner and share it with the other side of the family or the in-laws. Then the day after Christmas they have another big dinner and share it with everybody else in the family. Any Danes reading this can shoot me if I got any of that slightly off! The point is that Christmas is extremely important to them and they prep for that holiday weeks in advance.
Norwegians have similar traditions. They also love their food and parties during Christmas. They especially love their Christmas baking, making hundreds of cookies to snack on. They also celebrate Christmas on the 24th. They decorate the Christmas tree the day before not like us who can decorate it a month before! They don’t celebrate Christmas for three days, however; many of their food traditions are the same as Denmark.
Sweden has similar traditions as well. They also decorate the Christmas tree the day before Christmas. They celebrate with a variety of baked goods and they love their parties. They have other celebrations throughout December that lead up to Christmas on the 24th.
It’s very interesting how these three countries overlap in their traditions. This in part is from history when the three countries were under one government and their cultures were intertwined. It’s also because they live so close together that it’s impossible to stay separate when people move from one country to the next. Even in America, we see Scandinavian traditions being done every Christmas.
We have Danish in our family and celebrating on Christmas Eve is a must along with Danish cookies, and eating the traditional Danish holiday food. The one thing that we do differently is decorate the Christmas tree a few weeks earlier than the day before Christmas Eve. Too many Americans marrying into the family have won that tradition along with sneaking in traditional American food during the Christmas dinner.
So why don’t you try something new this holiday season? Where does your family come from? How can you incorporate their traditions into yours? Do they have decorations, crafts, music, rituals, or food that you would love to explore? Pick one and run with it! That’s genealogy!
I love the holidays! I hope you do as well! If you don’t have the traditional family or your season of life is different than what you want, then create the holiday that you want. Don’t just say oh well this is life. Say instead I’m going to create the life that I want. Then work to get that even if nobody else in the family wants to. Eventually someone may come around to your way of thinking. Maybe not, but it’s still possible to have happy holidays even when things aren’t quite right. Remember, the future isn’t set in stone. Go make it happen!
Good luck and happy hunting!
Tiffany
celebrations, Christmas, Denmark, festivities, food, Norway, rituals, Sweden, traditions
