The holiday season encompasses a wide variety of traditions from around the world—with many being celebrated right here in California, and even at PV High.
Many religious and cultural holidays take place in December, and the role of food in the celebrations connects all of them to each other despite each of them being unique.
In early December, festivities begin with Saint Nicholas Day on the 6th, a Christian holiday popular in Slavic and Germanic countries.
junior Annie Sherry’s family celebrates by placing their shoes out the night before. The next morning, they wake up to find them filled with sweets, then finish their celebration with a family dinner.
Bodhi Day falling on December 8 is a Buddhist holiday commemorating the Buddha’s enlightenment and is observed through meditation, acts of kindness, and self-reflection in Japan and many Western countries.
Although food is not as central in the recognition of this holiday, the modest meal of rice and milk that is traditional has meaning— as it represents the plain food that was offered to the Buddha before his enlightenment.
As the month continues, mid to late December brings Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, Las Posadas, and the Dongzhi Festival— some of which span multiple days and all of which include their own culinary traditions.
Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights, commemorates the miracle of the menorah that burned for eight days on a single day’s supply of oil after the Maccabees reclaimed the Temple from the Greek-Syrians.
senior Maia Boardman—a youth group leader at a local synagogue—celebrates at home by lighting the menorah, one candle at a time, and exchanging gifts with family.
At her synagogue, she “[teaches] the kids about Hanukkah and the Macabees” and they “make dreidels,” which are spinning tops with Jewish letters on them that they use for games, “and do arts and crafts and eats latkes and sufganiyot,” traditional foods resembling potato pancakes and jelly donuts.
All cultures have their own way of celebrating holidays with food, such as with the Dongzhi Festival, a traditional Chinese holiday marking the end of the winter solstice—the darkest day of the year.
It is typically celebrated with a large family meal which symbolizes the return of longer days and often includes tangyuan (rice balls).
Moving west, Yule, an ancient Pagan, Germanic, and Norse celebration, also takes place around the winter solstice.
Observers often burn a Yule log for good luck and decorate their homes with evergreen garlands as symbols of life. Warm tasting foods that signify the return of sunlight are common— things like spiced cider, gingerbread, and roast meats.
The Latin American holiday Las Posadas, celebrated from December 16 to 24, commemorates Mary and Joseph’s difficult search for shelter before Jesus’s birth.
A religious holiday, like Hanukkah, the celebration still includes food as well as singing, and a reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s journey, often in the form of a procession, but occasionally done in individual households.
freshman Liana Montalvan celebrates with her family through a call-and-response song, sung in Spanish.
“Some of the family starts singing from the inside,” she explained, “and on the outside, where I usually am, there are adults who have been doing it for years. They start singing… ‘Can you let us in?’ and the people inside respond, ‘We don’t have room in here.’… then we go to a different door… and on the last time they’re like, ‘Hey, we can let you in,’ so then we all go inside and start to eat.”
Storytelling and music are also universal, such as with Kwanzaa. This is an African American holiday inspired by African harvest traditions.
Kwanzaa lasts from December 26 to January 1 and culminates in the Karamu, a large communal feast where they sit around a mkeka, a woven mat. They place traditional objects such as a candleholder, gifts, and a unity cup on the mat.
Though all of these holidays may encompass many different traditions, cultures, and peoples, they all have something in common: at the end of the day, they’re designed so that people can rest, relax, and enjoy something with their communities.