(..and in houses in the U.S. with Colombians)
I know some of my American friends and family are going to roll their eyes. It is Nov. 19th (four days before Thanksgiving) and we already have our tree decorated, stockings hung, gingerbread house made, and nativity scenes on display (minus baby Jesus of course (he has to wait until midnight on the 24th to make his debut).
We are not done decorating (we still need to put the lights on the outside of the house), but we are well on our way. Colombians, you see, don’t have to wait until Thanksgiving is over to officially start the Christmas season—they literally go from Halloween to Christmas (I know, those two holidays don’t really go together well).
And, they love Christmas—especially Christmas lights. Some of the best Christmas light displays I have ever seen in my life have been in Colombia, where every park and mall is probably visible from space, because of how many lights they have.
Although the Christmas season officially kicks off on Dec. 7th with el dia de las velitas (the day of the candles), most Colombians (including us) begin decorating during early November.
One of the best parts about being in cross-cultural family is adopting double holiday traditions. We have two valentines days (Feb. 14th and Sept. 15th), a very long Easter celebration (Holy Week), celebrate two independence days (July 4th and July 20th) and of course have two Christmas celebrations.
We start at midnight on Dec. 24th where we eat tamales, natilla, buñuelos and other Colombian dishes, open gifts from El niño Dios and dance until we can’t dance anymore. Then, we get up the next day and do it all again—only this time we open presents from Santa, eat turkey, watch football and play board games.
The best way we have found to honor both cultures is to keep both traditions alive and do double celebrations. The challenge is to do all this and still maintain our focus on the real reason for the celebration—the birth of our Savior.
For those of you who are in multi-cultural families, how do you celebrate Christmas and keep multiple traditions alive?
The Real Modern Family 
Alex’s people, the Wounaan, just celebrate Christmas with a family meal. That’s it. No gifts, no decorations, just good food and family. Usually we do a more American Christmas, although a bit scaled down: stockings, a tree, and presents. We either have his parents over for a Christmas meal, or go over to their house for new years.
Christmas season in Panama doesn’t really start until after Mother’s Day (December 8th) which may be the biggest holiday in Panama. They love their mom’s here!
The whole month of November is set aside for Patriotic holidays: flag day and THREE different independance days. We went to the parades this year and had a great time.
Ok. I don’t have a multicultural marriage but it is interracial (me white and Jason is African American), and even with that slight difference there can be vast differences in our holiday traditions. Let’s take the time I told Jason’s dad that his collard greens tasted like dirt. In my mind I meant “earthy” but the look I got from each member of this small family had me convinced I had just told the children there was no Santa.
My mother-in-law is half African American and half German. When I first came into the family, Christmas dinner was not my usual turkey or prime rib, it was deli sandwiches ane and early morning trip on Christmas eve to the German store to get brochen and fleishcsalat (aka, grossest meat salad you can imagine.) We now get together and there is just a blending of all kinds of food at the holidays. The classic southern,the American, and the German, we can all come together on one thing, being together is the best.
Thanks Tina,
To some degree every family and relationship is cross-cultural as well all come from our own “sub cultures” also known as families… the divide is just bigger sometimes. The melting and blending of cultures makes us all richer and more unique in the end. So enjoy the fleischsalat (which does look kind of gross) for me.
I am married to a French Canadian and while he doesn’t decorate early, he does celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve at midnight which means the family party starts at around 7 pm and goes until the wee hours. Then, when we were living in Quebec, we would drag ourseves out of bed and drive down on Christmas day to see my family in Connecticut for Christmas dinner. All cultures celebrated, all families seen! Vives les cultures!