There’s something about this time of year that makes folks nostalgic. It’s the cold weather that makes you want to spend cozy celebrations inside, it’s the time of year where families visit and share Holiday Traditions, which tend to be everywhere!
Outside of our American traditions of Christmas trees and stockings, the kinds of family traditions can vary widely and can be, let’s say, unorthodox.
For example, in Mexico, the nativity scene is a big deal. But they do it differently. It’s carved…out of radishes.
Or in Italy, Santa doesn’t bring the toys. It’s la Befana, a kind old witch who brings the kiddies toys on her broomstick on Epiphany.
Well, I wanted to take a walk around the old GKB stomping grounds to see what some of our teammates do.
First up, our director of sales, Stephanie Sulock, “Every single year, we have to come up with some sort of gag, gift, or fun game. So we’ve done things like pie in your face type of contest, where they have to lick through the whipped cream to get the candy. We’ve done that saran wrap game where there’s a $50 bill in the middle.”
And the host of our show, What’s on Tap, Sandy Maxx says, “Well, ever since I was six months old, my parents started taking me to get my picture taken with Santa Claus, you know, the mall Santa. Well, I never stopped. Every single year, I go to a mall and get my picture taken with Santa and give it to my parents as a Christmas gift. And they love it.”
And hey, we’re not talking just about Christmas either.
Ever hear of the Yule log?
Teammate Cassandra Wilkins explains, “The celebration of Yule is the celebration of the winter solstice, which means we’re halfway through winter. And it’s like a festival of lights where we’re looking at the sun. We’re looking forward to winter ending and the sun coming back. So we do things like we reflect on the past year of all the things that were awesome throughout the year. You have trees like you do for Christmas to symbolize that things can grow even when everything is dead outside. And a lot of the decorations and even like having a log comes from Yule.”
Decorating is another popular way we can show our cultural differences. Consider the pickle.
“My children who are now adults still to this day decorate the tree by themselves and hide the pickle and have the most fabulous time doing it. It’s an ornament and it’s made out of glass and you hide it within the tree. And then when you find it, you get to hide it and then they have to, the other person has to find it.” says Digital Design Specialist Anglea Kornacki in our Creative Services department.
There are tons of traditions people can try on for a bit. We know Santa is our go-to guy when we want to make sure the kids are being good, right? Well, what about the famous Krampus who kidnaps naughty kids and takes them to his lair and eats them?
Oh yeah. Food is where we see some of the widest array of holiday traditions. Anyone for some Norwegian cured fish?
“Every Christmas Eve, we have lutefisk, which is the cod that is first dried and then reconstituted with lye. It is the ultimate of acquired tastes. It grows on you,” says Wisconsin historian Jon Gurda.
If you’re not into reconstituted cod, there’s always the more palatable Lefse.
Gurda says, “This is a really wonderful part of the same meal, [it’s] a Norwegian potato tortilla and it’s really good. And now our kids make lefse on the day before Christmas Eve, which is a lot of fun. Large sort of pizza-sized circles, you roll it out and fry it. It smells great and it tastes great and it’s wonderful for sandwiches later on.”
No matter what culture you come from or what holiday tradition you practice, we want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and the happiest of holiday seasons.
