1. What holidays do you take the day off to celebrate with family and friends?

2. Where do you celebrate? If it’s in someone’s home, which room does everyone gather in to socialize (for example, the kitchen, living room, or another room)?

3. If the celebration includes a meal, what is on the menu for the day?

4. Are there any special customs you and yours observe during the celebration?

5. Any other details or thoughts about celebrating you would like to share?

 

I was delighted to get such insightful responses. I learned so much. Please enjoy this journey into celebrations from around the world!

 

 

G.O. in Munich, Bavaria, Germany

 

“Since my family is Catholic, we most often meet at the church holidays. Easter, Pentecost, Christmas. Or birthdays, of course, especially those of the grandparents. No need to take a day off; most bank holidays are national holidays. We meet at the grandparents’ house, kitchen, living room, or garden. The menu includes something that is easy to cook for many people. Some Meat, Gulash, Noodles, Potatoes, Spätzle, Maybe some Blaukraut, and other Vegetables. Salad is always on. Sometimes we sing before the meal, although the younger generation finds it a bit awkward. 

We celebrate the Jewish Pessach on Thursday before Easter. That may be a bit peculiar to our family. My parents (Catholic), as well as the grandparents, are very interested in Jewish culture. There is quite a lot of singing involved, reading texts from the Bible, and a cold meal. Hummus, olives, Matzen, bitter greens, vinegar, eggs, wine, and at the end some other various things, cheese, creams, a cold ‘Brotzeit.’”

 

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Ireland: Dr. Rónán Ó Conghaile, Director at LetsLearnIrish.com, the online Irish community

 

“St. Patrick’s Day (on March 17), also referred to as Lá Fhéile Pádraig; is our national holiday here in Ireland, and we see it as an occasion to celebrate Irish culture and people. Some folks attend Mass in the morning time. Wearing green is a must, and it’s always a good idea to wear a small bunch of fresh shamrocks on your outer clothing or lapel.

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I often go to watch the local parade when I’m in Ireland. Most towns will have a parade, with local community groups, schools, clubs, marching bands and organisations all represented. You’ll see Irish flags, green balloons, placards, and anything and everything is green. It is a fun day out, especially if the rain stays away! Many tourists come to see the parade in Dublin City, which is huge, and it’s televised live on the national broadcaster, RTÉ.

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Over the years, I have been in other countries teaching Irish or meeting up with local groups. For example, in March this year (in my role as director of an online community of Irish learners) I organised an Irish language Gaeltacht in Amsterdam and another language event in Washington DC. In 2027, I hope to be in Bucharest to oversee a weekend of basic Irish language classes for anyone interested in Irish language and culture. Simply put, these events are enjoyable ways to celebrate the culture and bring people together.

The menu is typically a hearty, classic Irish meal. For me, lots of potatoes are a must. We watch an Irish movie, enjoy some live (traditional) music, go dancing, [and] meet up with friends in the city or town. For suggested activities to do on St. Patrick’s Day, see our article here: https://letslearnirish.com/articles/10-ways-to-celebrate-irish-culture/  Here is how to say Happy St. Patrick’s Day' in Irish: https://letslearnirish.com/frasai-simpli/st-patricks-day/ A good phrase to learn is Lá Fhéile Pádraig faoi mhaise duit (pronounced law ayla paw-drig fwee washa ditch), which translates as, A blessed St. Patrick’s Day to you. Learn to use the phrase Slåinte! for a toast - it means “to good health!”

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Ankara, Turkiye: Ms. Zeynep Rüçhan Çolpan, Film Producer

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“I come from a secular family in Turkiye, and we take New Year’s Eve quite seriously as a family affair. Many Turkish people love the trappings of Christmas; we put up Christmas trees and do presents (but we call them New Year Trees) and also have turkey with rice and small raisins and cinnamon among other meze and warm meze dishes. Growing up, it was quite important to have a family dinner in the beginning of the evening, and then as a teen/young 20s, my father would drop me off to party with my friends, so it was a combination of both family and friend celebrations.

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How we celebrate has changed throughout the years. When I was younger, it would be at a family friend’s apartment with kids running around and adults hanging out. Then I think our parents’ generation became a bit too tired to host such big events, so in my teen years in the early 2000s, we would go out for a restaurant dinner with family or family friends; in more recent years, especially since COVID, we take it quite easy. I live abroad (my family lives in Ankara, I live in Stockholm Sweden, I am an only child and unmarried/childfree) so I tend to prioritize New Year’s Eves with my parents rather than friends. My mother prepares a more pared-down version of a New Year’s Eve dinner, and me, her, and my father have pretty quiet nights in. There’s a tradition Turkish people call PTT - Pijama, Terlik, Televizyon (pjamas, slippers, TV. In Turkey PTT is also the name for the postal service, so it’s a play on words for that). I turned 40 this year, and I have to say this past New Year’s Eve was the most relaxed one I’ve had. My parents went to a neighbor’s house after our customary family dinner; I skipped out and ate cookies on the couch and watched TV and went to bed at ten past midnight.

 

A typical New Year’s Eve dinner borrows a lot like I said from Western Christmas traditions, with roast turkey, but also a large meze spread, raki (if people drink; my family is pretty lowkey with alcohol as they are quite health conscious and I don’t like the taste); haydari - a thick strained yoghurt with garlic, mint and dill; eggplant salad made with smoked eggplant and tomato sauce, as well as vine leaves stuffed with rice and cooked in olive oil, hummus, white cheese/feta etc. One custom in Turkey is to wear red underwear as you step into the new year, so that’s something my mother and I buy every year and wear.

 

Because I didn’t grow up in a religious family, and neither did my parents really, I can really miss the feelings of rituals and markers of time, which is why I really appreciate New Year’s Eve as a tradition.”

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Silesia, Poland: Mr. Lukas Drozd, OZD Studio

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(Author’s note: The following text was translated from Polish to English using Google Translate.)

“For me, there’s no single holiday that stands out from the rest. I’m a freelancer, so ‘day off’ is a relative term for me—I decide when I work and when I have time off.

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Celebrating most often means spending time with my wife and closest friends. These can include trips to scheduled concerts by our favorite artists, joint anniversaries, birthdays, or vacations abroad. Sometimes, it’s also larger family gatherings, most often related to important anniversaries or other occasions. Most often, however, these are trips with my wife or with a small group of closest friends - mountain trips, bicycle trips, or simply visiting interesting places together.

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When it comes to traditional holidays such as Easter or Christmas, we celebrate them, but not in a religious context, but in a more universal one. My wife and I spend time practically anywhere we feel like it. We enjoy cultural venues—art galleries, concert halls, theaters—as well as restaurants, because we love trying new things. We also enjoy exploring different places and going for walks together. Most often, however, we meet at home because it is simply at hand :) Family gatherings usually take place at the home of the person inviting the others. We all gather around one table. However, restaurants are becoming increasingly popular, especially when the gathering involves a larger group.

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In Poland, during family gatherings, we still often rely on local and traditional cuisine, even though virtually every cuisine in the world is available. In my region of Silesia, southern Poland, a typical larger family dinner might look like this:

 beef or pork roulade with Silesian dumplings and red cabbage,

 roast pork with sauce, also with Silesian dumplings or boiled potatoes,

 various types of salads, including sauerkraut, carrots or celery,

 and of course broth - a traditional Polish soup.

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For dessert, the popular ‘kołocz śląski’ (Silesian cake) is a typical regional cake made with poppy seeds, apples, or cheese. Coffee or tea are a perfect accompaniment, of course. In other regions of Poland, traditional dishes can look completely different. You might find pork chops, ground meat cutlets, various types of Polish soups, and fruit compote is often served as a drink. Over the years, Poland has also absorbed many influences from the cuisines of other countries. Therefore, Mediterranean and Asian dishes are increasingly common at modern family gatherings.

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I and my immediate circle (the people we encounter most often) are not religious or particularly strongly attached to tradition. What’s most important to us is the importance of good manners and respect for other participants. We don’t start eating until everyone is seated at the table, and we try to wait until everyone has received their meal. The most important things for us are equality and mutual respect. Our meetings are decidedly secular in nature. We also avoid political discussions. Instead, we prefer to discuss science, culture, art, and music, as well as various issues related to human life. Celebrations are important to me, but I try to treat them more symbolically than materially.

 

If gifts are given, they tend to be those that hold some meaning and significance for us. If we go somewhere, it’s because we truly want to and because the trip means something to us. We don’t celebrate at all costs just because tradition dictates. We live somewhat by our own clock, relying primarily on values ​​we consider universal. In fact, we try to celebrate every day - or at least look at the world in such a way that each day has something worth appreciating.”

 

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Paris, France: Mr. Dhia Ben Naser

 

“We are a Muslim family, so we celebrate Eid; we say Aïd. There are two: Eid al-Fitr, which closes Ramadan and the month of fasting, and Eid al-Adha about two months later.  I celebrate both. Eid isn’t a public holiday in France, so it’s a day I book off work myself. Small detail that says a lot: the date depends on the lunar month, so some years you don’t know until the night before whether it falls on the Thursday or the Friday. You tell your employer, ‘probably Thursday, I’ll confirm tonight.’

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I’m the one who hosts now at my place, which still feels new. My parents come, my brother’s family, my sister’s family, whichever cousins happen to be passing through. And always a few people who aren’t related to me at all: young people with no family nearby, and converts who have no one to celebrate with, because their own family doesn’t share the holiday. The guest list is never only the family.

The room depends on which Eid it is. For Eid al-Fitr it’s the living room, and it’s a long, slow, seated afternoon: sofas, the low table, a tray of pastries refilled without anyone asking, mint tea poured from height. People sink in and don’t get up for hours. For Eid al-Adha, nobody is in the living room except for the cookers. Everyone is outside around the grill. There’s smoke, someone is always turning something, food arrives in waves instead of all at once, and you eat standing with your fingers. Same holiday, opposite choreography. At seven in the morning, before going to the morning prayer; after a month of fasting, the very first thing is dates and coffee. Nothing else. Your stomach has forgotten how to be hungry, and you reintroduce it gently. Then lunch, and it’s always the same: a leg of lamb with potatoes, roasted, the potatoes cooked underneath in the fat. Which, now that I write it down, is a very French dish on a very Tunisian day, and that’s exactly what my table is.​

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The sweets are the Tunisian half, and they’re made days in advance:

 baklawa : the Tunisian kind, cut in squares, heavy on almonds

 kaak warka : pale almond-paste rings perfumed with geranium water; that’s,the one that is Eid to me, more than any other taste

 samsa and makroudh alongside

Eid al-Adha is a different menu entirely: lamb again, but méchoui, grilled over a whole afternoon, with everything that belongs to a grill. Savoury, smoky, hands only.

Special customs:

 New clothes, head to toe: bought in the last week of Ramadan, even as an adult. And perfume, music especially. You smell the house before you reach the door.

 The prayer at the mosque at dawn, and then the parking lot afterward, which is honestly half the point: every face you only see twice a year, all in one place, all embracing.

 Zakat al-Fitr: before the morning prayer, every household gives a fixed sum to people in need. It has to be paid before the celebration starts — you aren’t allowed to begin feasting until you’ve made sure someone else can eat.

 The thirty phone calls. A long chain of them: Tunisia first, then family scattered across other countries. Aïd moubarak, saha aïdek. Four minutes each, thirty of them, the phone [is] warm all day. It’s how a family living on three continents manages to sit at one table for an afternoon.

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Two more customs:

The night before is secretly the best part. Laylat al-Eid: the house awake late, the last trays of pastries being finished, and a strange collective suspense while everyone waits to hear whether the month has actually ended. As a child, that announcement was the most dramatic broadcast of the year. The other thing is the chairs that aren’t for the family. Eid is built around relatives, which means it can be the loneliest day of the year if you don’t have any nearby [such as] students far from home, people who’ve recently converted and whose parents don’t celebrate it at all. So the table is always set bigger than the family. Nobody makes a speech about it; they just arrive, and they’re folded in, handed a plate, asked about their mother. And because Eid isn’t marked on the French calendar, no decorations in the street, no music in the shops, no sign saying ‘closed for the holiday’ the whole thing lives inside the house.”

 

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Learning about these different cultures and celebration customs reminds me it’s important to be respectful of other people and where they come from. More than respect, I have a growing admiration for learning about other ways of life around the world. Hopefully, one day I will be able to travel to some of these places and experience these celebrations firsthand.

I’m grateful to the wonderful people who responded to my questions, and I made sure to reach out to share this sentiment. I’m also grateful to my readers. I hope you have been entertained and encouraged.

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A blessed Thanksgiving to you, or whatever you choose to celebrate this month!

 

ANGELA DOLBEAR writes real, relatable, and reverent fiction and non-fiction.

She is the author of four contemporary Christian novels, such as THE GARDEN KEY Series and THE TORMENTOR’S TALE, as well as many short stories. All her novels are available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook formats. She is the president of the Nashville Chapter of Word Weavers International. Please visit the THYME Magazine Bookstore for more information. Drop by Angela’s website and sign up for news, read the latest stories, and hear new original music at http://www.angeladolbear.com/subscribe.htm.