World Citizen Wednesdays #8: Holiday Memories

Welcome to World Citizen Wednesday!

Each week we pose a question to members of the fabulous Multicultural Kid Blogs group and share their answers here.

You can find out more about these wonderful bloggers by visiting our Facebook page, subscribing to our Facebook feed, following us on Twitter, or following our group Pinterest board! On Twitter, you can also find us by using the hashtag #multiculturalkids

This week we continue to share answers to the prompt:

Share a favorite holiday memory from your childhood.

Gina of Connecting Family and Seoul: When I was growing up, we always used to go to my great-grandma’s for Christmas dinner. With all of my cousins there was over 25 people around the dinner table and just as many stockings hanging on the banister. I can still picture my great-grandma, dressed up in her plastic Santa suit, tossing gifts to everyone across the living room. Because there were so many of us most of the gifts were socks, underwear, pencils, or notebooks, but we loved them! Those Christmases will be ones that I always cherish!

Varya of Little Artists: New Year’s Eve. It is widely celebrated in Russia and CIS countries. We would put up the tree few weeks ahead, decorate with store-bought decorations, tangerines, pines, candies, little dolls. Until now the smell of tangerine for me is associated with New Year and the smell of the pine tree. On Dec 31st we would make lots and lots of dishes, some frozen, salads, cakes. Around 7 we would get together and start dinner. Often friends came over. We would eat and watch TV and at midnight we would count down with the TV, congratulate each other and then watch TV till we fall asleep! We had a whole week off for New Year’s holidays so we would just laze around, eat the leftovers and the frozen food we made in “old” year. On January 13th we would celebrate Old New Year (by old orthodox calendar) and after that it was ok to take the tree down. However ours would be there till it’d start getting yellow!

Frances of Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes: Ahhhhhh my favorite childhood memory, is in fact a funny one! LOL I found out Santa didn’t exist when I stumbled upon a closet full of wrapped gift boxes when I was 6! I really wanted to know what was inside, so I had my little sister 5 yrs. old guard the hallway (looking out for Mom), while I tried to poke small holes in the wrapped gift boxes to see what was inside. Hahaha! This went on for a few years, until my Mom figured out we were snooping, and hid the gifts elsewhere. I tell you, I was a handful when I was a kid! My sister and I crack up every time this comes up around the holidays.

Jennifer of The Good Long Road: In 1999, I was studying abroad in Egypt and had met a fellow American studying abroad too who would become my future husband, parenting and business partner. For Christmas, we decided to take a bus to the West Bank so that we could spend Christmas in Bethlehem. It was incredible! At that time, things were quite optimistic and hopeful between Palestinians and Israelis and so many people were together outside the Church of the Nativity enjoying the celebrations and festivities that included performers from around the world. To top it off, it actually snowed a little bit in Jerusalem that Christmas Eve (where we were staying), which is unheard of!

And my favorite holiday memory?  It is of gathering with family at our grandparents’ houses.  We would spend Christmas Day with my father’s family then the following day with my mother’s.  There was so much good food to eat, and we got to play with cousins we only saw once or twice a year – not to mention all of the new presents we received!  I also loved going to midnight service with my grandparents on Christmas Eve, and the magical ride back to their house as we were all nodding off, looking out the windows at the Christmas lights on the houses in the countryside.

In case you missed it, you can also read the holiday memories we shared last week. And you can also read earlier installments of World Citizen Wednesdays, including tips for keeping holidays stress-free!

To find out more about these amazing bloggers, check out the Multicultural Kid Blogs Facebook page. And watch for our group website, coming soon!