Celebrating Holidays and Awareness Days

You might be familiar with the winter solstice as the day with the shortest amount of sunlight. But around the world, many cultures still celebrate the longest night of the year with unique winter solstice traditions.

• Dozens of modern-day pagans, druids, and others visit Stonehenge during the solstice to pay homage to the return or rebirth of the sun. They play music and dance or perform other activities in order to welcome the sun back. 

• Newgrange is a burial mound in Ireland’s Boyne Valley which is thought to be over 5,000 years old, and it contains a passage that is aligned to the sun. Every year, thousands apply to see the first rays of the sun filling the chamber. Only around 60 people get to do it. 

• Pagans also celebrate yule with several days of feasting and gift-giving, culminating in Winter Solstice Day, the central celebration. They use sacred colors, red, green, and white, and evergreens to decorate their homes. They honor such ancient gods and goddesses as Cronos (Father Time), by lighting candles, burning circle fires outside and yule logs indoors. 

• In different parts of Asia, people celebrate the solstice, known by such names as Dongzhi or Dongji, by giving gifts and eating special dishes. E.g. The Koreans eat a red bean porridge to repel evil spirits; the Chinese eat balls of rice in a broth. 

• In Japan, people soak in fruit-filled baths to welcome the sun and protect themselves from catching a cold during the winter. 

• In Austria, crowds of revelers go to town squares to see and be teased by Krampus, the half-demon, half-goat equivalent to Santa Claus. 

• In Iran, friends, and family get together for the solstice, Yalda night, and eat dinner, read significant poetry and eat symbolic fruit, such as pomegranates, which represent the dawn of life. 

• In the Middle Ages, Christmas celebrations were rowdy and raucous—a lot like today’s Mardi Gras parties.
• When Christmas was cancelled: From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was outlawed in Boston, and law-breakers were fined five shillings.
• Christmas was declared a federal holiday in the United States on June 26, 1870.
• The first eggnog made in the United States was consumed in Captain John Smith’s 1607 Jamestown settlement.
• Poinsettia plants are named after Joel R. Poinsett, an American minister to Mexico, who brought the red-and-green plant from Mexico to America in 1828.
• The Salvation Army has been sending Santa Claus-clad donation collectors into the streets since the 1890s.
• Rudolph, “the most famous reindeer of all,” was the product of Robert L. May’s imagination in 1939. The copywriter wrote a poem about the reindeer to help lure customers into the Montgomery Ward department store.
• Construction workers started the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree tradition in 1931.

 

Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26th through January 1st.

 

After the Watts riots in Los Angeles, Dr. Maulana Karenga searched for ways to bring African Americans together as a community.  His research of African "first fruit" harvest celebrations, led to the creation of Kwanzaa in 1966.  Dr. Karenga combined aspects of several different harvest celebrations, such as those of the Ashanti and those of the Zulu, to form the basis of this week-long holiday.

 

While each family celebrates Kwanzaa its own way, celebrations often include songs and dances, African drums, storytelling, poetry reading, and a large traditional meal.  

 

On each of the seven nights of Kwanzaa, the family gathers and a child lights one of the candles on the Kinara (candleholder), then one of the seven principles are discussed.  These principles, called the Nguzo Saba are values of African culture which contribute to the building and reinforcing of community among African Americans.

 

1. Umoja: Unity - To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.

2. Kujichagulia: Self-Determination - To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.

3. Ujima: Collective Work and Responsibility - To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and solve them together.

4. Ujamaa: Cooperative Economics - To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

5. Nia: Purpose - To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

6. Kuumba: Creativity - To always do as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

7. Imani: Faith - To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

 

1. Mazao: Crops - Mazao symbolizes the fruits of collective planning and work, and the resulting joy, sharing, unity and thanksgiving part of African harvest festivals. To demonstrate mazao, people place nuts, fruits, and vegetables, representing work, on the mkeka.

Image courtesy of Pexels

2. Mkeka: Place Mat - Just as the crops stand on the mkeka, the present day stands on the past. The mkeka symbolizes the historical and traditional foundation for people to stand on and build their lives.

A mkeka mat from Tanzania.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

3. Muhindi: Ear of Corn - The stalk of corn represents fertility and the idea that through children, the future hopes of the family are brought to life. One vibunzi is placed on the mat for every child in the family.

Image courtesy of Pexels

4. Mishumaa Saba: The Seven Candles - Candles are ceremonial objects that serve to symbolically re-create the sun’s power, as well as to provide light. There are three red candles, three green candles, and one black candle that are placed on the kinara.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

5. Kinara: The Candleholder - The kinara represents our ancestry, and the original stalk from which we came.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

6. Kikombe Cha Umoja: The Unity Cup - On the sixth day of Kwanzaa, the libation ritual is performed to honor the ancestors. Every family member and guest will take a drink together as a sign of unity and remembrance.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

7. Zawadi: Gifts - On the seventh day of Kwanzaa, gifts are given to encourage growth, achievement, and success. Handmade gifts are encouraged to promote self-determination, purpose, and creativity.

Above all, Kwanzaa is a time for family and love.