Talk:Observance of Christmas by country

United Kingdom

I'm rearranging the article, and I cut this, because it doesn't belong in this page, it belongs in Christmas proper:

United Kingdom

Children have long been a part of the celebration.

Christmas crackers form an integral part of Christmas celebrations, and the Christmas pantomime is popular with young families. The festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge is a popular religious programme. Every year since 1947 the city of Oslo has presented the people of Britain with the gift of a spruce tree as a token of appreciation for British support of Norway during the Second World War. The tree stands in Trafalgar Square and is the most famous Christmas tree in Britain.

The usual Christmas dinner meat is turkey, and Christmas pudding is the dessert. Christmas cakes, often decorated with white icing, are also baked.

--Carl 09:06, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Why cannot this go in the article? ~ Also the traditional main meal it is not turkey in the United Kingdom but Roast Goose, as geese are more native and turkey was introduced by American culture. ~Again also, can we please refer from using England to describe the whole of the United Kingdom as in the caption under the image of on Regent Street, London, "England" should be replaced with on Regent Street, London, UK (not that many people will get it confused with London, Kentucky) --Lemonade100 (talk) 15:42, 2 November 2008 (GMT)

Advent candles. Three Pink and One Purple is plain wrong. If anything, it is three purple and one pink. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neely1 (talk • contribs) 17:16, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Why is surfing Santa so emphasised?

I'm not sure why the Bondi stunt is so emphasised. Similar stunts (multiple Santas on milling about on snow skis) occur in Northern Hemisphere countries, and Bondi is a single location on a big continent. Isn't that Bondi thing especially catering for displaced UK and New Zealand tourists and backpackers away from their families so unlikely to be attendeding traditional family gatherings? Most actual Australians would not be at Bondi but instead be at family gatherings. I might try to add something but I'm not sure how to approach it. Original section is below... Asa01 23:22, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

In Commonwealth countries in the southern hemisphere, Christmas is still celebrated on December 25, despite the fact that this is the height of their summer season. This rather clashes with the traditional winter based iconography of Christmas, resulting in anachronisms such as a red fur-coated Santa Claus surfing in for a turkey barbecue on Bondi Beach. The Australian and New Zealand traditions are quite similar to North Americas and The British.

OK I tried to clean-up. I think the problem with above was it was mingling two very separate and distinct things. There are special tourist barbecues in Bondi (according to wikipedia) which include humourous stunts involving dressed-up Santas, and yes in Aust there is an odd continued use of wintery decorations, carols and iconography in summer, but these are two different things. Both things are worthy of being discussed. Asa01 23:43, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Svyatki in Russia

What is the Svyatki (Святки) in Russia about?--Hhielscher 14:06, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Edit disaster

What's with all the sample images, headline texts and u's? It looks like someone used this article as a sandbox. ChibiKareshi 12:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I think someone also needs to check the section on Germany. I'm pretty sure some of the details on the "Krampus" are actually quotations from the "Venture Bros. Christmas Special" which my brother showed me last night after I had mentioned the Krampus. The line about "the Pope casting the Krampus into Purgatory" most definitely comes from the show. It may very well be that the details are correct (I don't personally know much about the Krampus), but the fact that they so closely echo lines from what was essentially a parody of traditional Christmas programming set off a few warning signals in my mind. Macroidtoe 04:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that this is made up. Being german I have never heard of this until reading this article. While it is true that there are many regional customs in Germany, the (german) Wikipedia article Christmas traditions in German speaking regions does not mention this. I'll delete this paragraph.195.128.251.214 21:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

My boyfriend lived in South Korea for seven years, and he's never heard of Santa Claus called "Santa Haraboji." He just said Santa Claus. tweetychick630 22:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed merge

It's been proposed that Romanian Christmas traditions be merged into this article. Actually it was also proposed that it be moved here. There seems no proposal to merge (or move) the other articles from Category:Christmas traditions by country, perhaps that's coming, or perhaps it just wasn't very well thought out.

Oppose the merge, anyway. Andrewa 12:32, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Discuss the merge of the Romanian Christmas traditions article.--Sefringle 22:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. But see Talk:Romanian Christmas traditions#Proposed move. Andrewa 09:24, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. That's what I meant. --Sefringle 19:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The merge notice at Romanian Christmas traditions points here, the merge notice in this article points here, and IMO the proposal should be discussed here. No change of vote. Andrewa 05:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Support The article is a stub, and belongs as a subcategory on this article. As long as it remains a stub, it should be moved.--Sefringle 07:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment (replying to the proposer of the merge, and also of the previous move proposal): The question is not whether it's a stub but whether it is doomed to remain one. IMO this has potential for growth, to become like the articles already at American Christmas traditions and Philippine Christmas traditions. That's what stubs are for. Andrewa 10:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

However it still is a stub. And as long as it is this short, we should merge it here.Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. If and when it starts to get big, then we can give it its own article. Otherwise, we could give every country on this page its own article, because there are many countries on this page with more content than the Romanian christmas traditions article that do not have their own page, for example, Australia.--Sefringle 03:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I have copied the imformation on the Romanian Christmas traditions article and have put it here. I will nominate that article for deletion soon if appropiate changes are not made soon.--Sefringle 03:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

the article has been deleted.--Sefringle 02:53, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Belgium and the Netherlands

"Sinterklaas" is not "Santa-ish". Santa Claus is clearly inspired by Sinterklaas.

Please sign your posts on talk pages. Otherwise, there's a good chance that you're wasting your time posting. Andrewa 04:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

About the regions

Someone should look into the regionalization here. For example, Germany is not Northern Europe, while on the other hand, UK and Ukraine (!!) do not belong to Southern Europe. Georgia belongs to Central Asia.

About the traditions in Germany and The Netherlands at Dec 6, they are not largely identical, and the German "Nikolaus"-day does not at all resemble British Christmas (I`m German, so I guess I have a faint idea about this). The Dutch tradition sees Dec 6 as their main event, while in Germany, the "Nikolaus" is a small event; purposefully not celebrated as large as Christmas. It is true that children take their shoes outside (or sometimes stockings), to be filled overnight with a few small sweets or small presents, though.

Also, in Germany are many christmas-figures mixed. It might depend on the region, but there can easily a Christkind (baby Jesus) and Santa Claus exist next to each other.

Please (sigh) sign your posts on talk pages. But thanks for your input, that's interesting. Andrewa 05:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

This page has been vandalised. Under the Japan heading. 67.91.66.218 (talk) 17:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)Andre

The headline for Sweden has disappeared, yet underneath the Norwegian entry there is information about Christmas in Sweden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.230.90.194 (talk) 17:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Armenia

Can you please write about Christmas in Croatia (December 25), Serbia (January 7), Bosnia and Herzegovina (January 7), Macedonia (January 7)? Armenia as well. They celebrate it on January the 6. -- comment by 67.91.66.218 moved from article page by William Avery (talk) 11:34, 26 December 2007 (UTC).

Well, CATHOLICS in Croatia celebrate it on December 25th, but I imagine CROATIAN SERBS would celebrate it on January the 7th. In Serbia, the Catholics would also observe December 25h.

This leads me to an other thing. Bosnia has no majority religion, and the Christians are split between Catholics and Orthodox, so here more than most places both December 25th AND January 7th apply. How you decided January 7th was "their" Christmas I don't know, since I'm not sure who the "they" in question is. Is it the Bosniaks? Because they are Muslims, and y'know, as such, not so big on the Christmas.

סרסלי, קײק פּלז (talk) 08:51, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yankee Jews

I added some stuff about us, the American Jews and our Christmas habits. Feel free to delete anything you don't think is relevant. סרסלי, קײק פּלז (talk) 08:46, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

This article's been the subject of quite a lot of vandalism. When restoring, please be careful to review recent edits to ensure you restore properly. I'll be keeping an eye on this to see if it needs semi or full protection. --Dweller (talk) 12:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. Semi-protected. I'll full protect it, and I'm quite prepared to block any registered users if vandalism persists. --Dweller (talk) 19:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Sweden is missing a header

The section on Sweden follows under the "Norway" header, with the "Sweden" header missing.

Can't fix myself since the article is locked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Malesca (talk • contribs) 18:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Some typos in the Swedish section: "payed" should be "paid", and "notrh" should be "north".84.49.116.43 (talk) 21:55, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Denmark

The last paragraph under 'Denmark', beginning with "The Christmas feast, in Denmark,..." has a number of issues. The first 3 sentences merely repeat what is already stated above it, except for the mention of good luck, which is a detail I am not familiar with. The rest has a few errors and could be worded better in my opinion. I propose the following paragraph to replace it:

"In Denmark, Santa Claus is known as Julemanden (literally "the Yule Man") and is said to arrive with presents for the children. He is assisted with his Yuletide chores by elves known as julenisser (or simply nisser), who are traditionally believed to live in attics, barns or similar places. In some traditions, to maintain the favor and protection of these nisser, children leave out rice pudding or other treats for them and are delighted to find the food gone on Christmas morning." --Adcoon (talk) 14:57, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure

Warrington (talk) 15:33, 25 December 2008 (UTC)