All tagged Christmas
Don’t even think about calling your Swedish friend between 3-5pm on Christmas Eve, because like most of the country they’ll be watching Donald Duck cartoons. In 1959 at 3pm, TV station TV1 showed the Disney special “From All of Us to All of You” or, “Kalle Anka och hans vanner onskar God Jul” (“Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas”), and the station has been repeating the show each year since.
Carp. We know them as overgrown goldfish that live in ponds. But many Central and Eastern Europeans know them as Christmas dinner. Parents usually buy living carp a few days before Christmas, with the lucky carp’s temporary new home becoming the family bathtub. Just before dinner, the carp leaves the bathtub for an untimely and brutal meeting with a mallet. Holy carp! As a result many families have found their Christmas dinner plans spoiled, because what happens when you mix live animals with children? The carp quickly stops becoming a Christmas meal and instead gets a name and the protection of a loving child.
In Catalonia, Spain, a 200-year-old Christmas tradition involves hiding a 'caganer' - a man, umm... having a poo - in the Nativity scene. It's usually hidden at the back, and Catalonian children play a game to 'find the caganer'. Nobody knows exactly how the tradition started.
