Make this Christmas all about displaying your worldliness with the help of these handpicked customs from, well, mainly Catalonia, as it turns out.

Christmas is a wonderfully perplexing hodgepodge of traditions, religions and cultures. The now secularized holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus taking place on the birthday of the Persian sun god Mithras, incorporating traditions of the Roman Saturnalia festival and Pagan winter solstice is like a lovely big collage anyone seems free to add to (bring glitter!). So if gingerbread and mulled wine are starting to seem a bit drab, here are a few suggestions of how you can spice up your holidays with some of the more interesting traditions from other corners of the Earth:

Since we are living in a material world, gift giving is the most important part of the festivities. Now, most of us are familiar with visits from Santa Claus – actual visits, I mean, none of that breaking and entering in the middle of the night that seems to go on in the crime-obsessed Anglo-American world – but Santa’s got a busy schedule so some countries have come up with alternative gift bringers. In many Catholic countries our Papist friends receive an advance visit from good ol’ Saint Nick on – that’s right – St. Nicholas’ day on December 6th when Santa rolls into town accompanied by a huge parade, handing out oodles and oodles of Christmas joy to hordes of delighted, bright-eyed children! (Something to think about next year when you’re lighting the pesky pair of candles on your window sill and watching people shake hands for three hours…) But the gifting doesn’t stop there! On Christmas day only small presents are given but on Epiphany the Magi make an appearance bearing – no, not gold, myrrh and frankensteinsence (as if that was good for babies anyway) – but the actual Christmas goodies. Three gift-giving occasions over the holidays? Now, that’s just good for the economy.

Getting presents from Santa, your family or the Magi, even, is not that unusual, but how about getting a visit from the birthday boy himself? In Germany (you guessed it!) Baby Jesus himself manages to visit all the homes of good Catholic children before kicking back in the manger. Having someone give you presents on their birthday? That’s pretty uncool, Germans.

But even that isn’t as weird as what goes on in Catalonia. Like in the rest of Spain, it’s Epiphany, not Christmas, that’s the main gifting occasion, but the children are amused with small trinkets on Christmas Day anyhow. The Catalan children don’t have crackers or stockings or anything like that, but they do have a poo-log! Don’t let South Park fool you, it’s a real log that’s been covered with a blanket, hiding the log’s little surprises.

At times the Finnish Christmas festivities can get a little solemn, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Families gather ‘round the warm glow of the TV to watch and listen while the (otherwise rowdy?) city of Turku declares peace for Christmastime, people bring candles to the graves of friends and family members to remember those who have passed on, and those so inclined go to church and think about Jesus. But in the end it is a festival of light and joy and candy, so perhaps it could do with a little spicing up. The carnivalistic elements of Christmas go all the way back to Saturnalia, after all.

The Catalan Christmas spectacularly combines the sacred and the profane by somehow managing to add excrement into many of its central traditions. There’s the aforementioned poo-log, or le caga tió, which is a hollowed-out log standing on four legs, with a little smiley face painted on it. It’s regularly fed before Christmas, when the children beat it with sticks to make it drop the toys and sweets hidden inside. There’s also a chant to aid in the proceedings.

But that’s not the end of their infantile obsession: the Catalonian manger scenes feature the traditional caganer, often depicting public figure of some sort answering Nature’s call. As they sit down for Christmas dinner, the toast is: menja bé, caga fort, or, “eat well, poo strong”. Erm, yes, I’m sure there’s plenty we can learn from our brave Catalonian friends.

Of course, Christmas would be nothing without the food. The pagan tradition was to celebrate with a massive feast if the Winter Solstice didn’t turn out to be the end of the world after all. Christianity then introduced the idea of fasting before major festivals and then royally pigging out in reward. In some parts of Central Europe, fasting is still a traditional on Christmas Eve. In Czech Republic, for instance, children are taught to fast on Christmas Eve until a ceremonial dinner is served, in order to be able to see a “golden pig”.
(Warning: appearance of said pig might be due to hunger-induced hallucination.)

Looking at traditional holiday dishes from around the world, it is comforting to see that the world is full of
bizarre foods that are only eaten at Christmas for reasons no one can understand. Lutefish, for example, continues to make an unrequested annual visit at our table, and I’m sure a cake prepared (with lard, no less) a month before Christmas and then forgotten in the back of a cupboard is no treat either. Cougnou, a Belgian Christmas cake shaped like baby Jesus, is surely more than a little disturbing. And could someone please tell me what the appeal of drinking raw eggs laced with rum is?

Luckily, everyone’s free to make what they want of the holidays. The city of Birmingham infamously came up with their own take on the season in the late nineties. It was dubbed “Winterval,” and at its most extensive form managed to cover Hallowe’en, Bonfire Night, Diwali, Ramadan, Eid, Hanukkah, Advent, Christmas,  Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve, and Chinese New Year.

Happy Holidays everybody!

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