KYLE M. JOHNSON
PRIDE STAFF WRITER
While Christmas is one of the most widely-celebrated of holidays in American culture, many other holidays take place in close proximity in the calendar.
Another form of the Christmas celebration exists in the Catholic tradition. While many Christmas celebrations pay tribute to the birth of Jesus, Catholic celebrations express a form of preparation for the second coming of the Lord.
According to the Catholic Education Resource Center, “The Catholic Church has designated the four weeks preceding Christmas as Advent, a time to ‘prepare the way of the Lord.’”
The Catholic Education Resource Center also lists in great detail many activities of Advent. Each activity including the Advent wreath, the blessing of the tree and the Christ and Mary candles act as a symbol of the faith of the Catholic Church. Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday that is celebrated for eight days and nights.
“[Hanukkah] starts on the 25 of the Jewish month of Kislev, which coincides with late November-late December on the secular calendar,” Ariela Pelaia wrote on her about.com article on Judaism.
Pelaia, a professional Jewish educator who received her Master’s degree in Jewish Studies at Columbia University, also shared how Hanukkah became popularized due to its proximity to Christmas.
“Because many Jews live in predominately Christian societies, over time Hanukkah has become much more festive and Christmas-like. Jewish children receive gifts for Hanukkah – often one gift for each of the eight nights of the holiday,” she said.
Other Hanukkah traditions include the lighting of the menorah candles each of the eight nights, the spinning of the dreidel, a four-sided top with Hebrew letters on each side and eating fried foods.
Kwanzaa, a cultural holiday established in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga of CSU Long Beach, takes place from Dec. 26 – Jan. 1 is an African-American and Pan-African celebration of family, community and culture.
The Official Kwanzaa website shares the customs of the holiday, stating that it builds on the activities of the beginning of harvest celebrations in Africa.
The activities: ingathering, reverence, commemoration, recommitment and celebration, are a way to respectively reiterate the bonds between the people, express gratitude towards the creator for blessings, reflect on the past in an effort to learn lessons and honor ancestors, recommit to African ideals and celebrate the determination of Black freedom.
Winter Solstice, or the December Solstice, i s a celebration dedicated to the beginning of winter. The date in which the celebration takes place differs annually depending on “when the sun reaches its most southerly declination of -23.5 degrees,” according to timeanddate.com.
On Circle Sanctuary’s Guide to Pagan Holidays, Selena Fox encourages many traditions of Winter Solstice to commemorate the arrival of winter including strengthening bonds with family and friends, blessing one’s home with a Yule wreath and mistletoe, collecting and donating food and clothing and greeting the sun on Solstice morning and the moon on Solstice night with bells.
Fox also suggests that the celebrator identify his or her individual purpose for celebrating, whether that may be to strengthen family bonding with one another, adjust family to Nature’s cycles or to just have fun, as well as many other reasons Fox lists.
These different celebrations that take place during this holiday season display diversity in culture that presently exists in American lifestyle.