Last weekend, we told my friend’s six children that we were giving them chicken bones for Christmas. They were horrified. Granted, this wasn’t the first time that week we’d given them something weird in the name of international holiday traditions, so they were suspicious.* If you told a group of children in New Brunswick the same thing, I imagine they’d be delighted. So for the Third Day of Imported Christmas, we’re eating Chicken Bones.
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For many Swedish families, it just isn’t Christmas without a straw goat somewhere on or under the tree. For the families in Gävle, it just isn’t Christmas unless you have to stop arsonists from burning your town’s giant straw goat to the ground. And for their neighbors, there is nothing more Christmasy than a goat bonfire. On the Sixth Day of Imported Christmas, we made a Julbock (Yule goat) of our own. Continue reading
If you’ve met either of us, you know we have a bit of a book problem. Fortunately, in our search for imported Christmas traditions, we discovered the perfect support group for our addiction: the entire population of Iceland. On the Fifth Day of Imported Christmas, we are celebrating Jolabokaflod, or the Christmas book flood that sweeps across Iceland every year. Continue reading
For most of my life, wassailing was just something that popped up in Christmas song lyrics, like “Love and joy come to you, and to you your wassail too” or “Here we come a-wassailing.” But as long as we’re talking unusual Christmas traditions, we thought that on the Fourth Day of Imported Christmas, we’d share the joy of wassailing in its ancient form. Continue reading
I knew it was time to get serious about Christmas this year when Gordon came home with a box from Topper Bakery in Ogden. So on the Third Day of Imported Christmas, we are celebrating Speculaas, the delicious Dutch cookies that we keep meaning to share with people but never quite manage to. Continue reading
Every once in a while, someone has a stroke of marketing genius that influences an entire generation (Ch ch ch chia, Where’s the beef?, Got Milk? etc.) On the Second Day of Imported Christmas, we are celebrating one of the most effective marketing campaigns of all time: the KFC takeover of Christmas in Japan.
In 1974, the fledgling Japanese KFC franchises needed a boost. Takeshi Okawara, the manager of Japan’s first KFC, decided to take advantage of the lack of Japanese traditions for Christmas (which was largely not celebrated at all except by foreigners, who couldn’t get their traditional turkey ). He launched a campaign called “Kentucky for Christmas” and offered a Christmas party barrel that started with chicken and evolved to include sides, cake, and optional KFC wine.
I love Christmas almost as much as I love trying new things. Gordon has a knack for finding the strangest and best things other cultures/the internet have to offer and having the requisite skills to do them. In truly American fashion, we decided to round out our Christmas with 12 Days of Imported Christmas traditions.
On the First Day of Imported Christmas, we’re going with one of our favorite traditions found so far. When Gordon saw an article about Caga Tió, the Catalonian poop log, he immediately went out to the garage to make one.
Mountain Man Living 