Winter Break Traditions
By Defne Erisir ’27, Staff Writer; Edited by Kat Willson ’26, Editor-in-Chief
December Break is all about visiting relatives, and having fun with your friends whom you don’t get to spend much time with during school. To honour this festive break, here are some traditions from different cultures.
Chinese Traditions:
- Visiting Relatives - Family is a very important aspect of Chinese culture and holidays are amazing opportunities to get together with them.
- Going to the countryside - Many Chinese families have relatives living in the countryside, whenever they have the time they like to reunite with them.
- Family dinners - Typically Chinese families enjoy a festive meal with traditional Chinese dishes, which are times the family reunites.
Japanese Traditions:
- Eating soba noodles - In Japanese tradition, people eat soba noodles because they believe that long soba noodles will help them live longer.
- Go to temples on new years - Japanese people go to shrines or temples to listen to the bell that rings on New Year’s Eve when the clock hits zero, this is to get rid of the bad luck that’s trying to sneak in to the new year.
- Cleaning the house - Japanese people clean the house before the new years to reset the mind and to reset their environment.
Canadian Traditions:
- Celebrate Christmas - In Canadian culture, Christmas is an unforgettable experience whether it would be to decorate the house, buy presents, or just enjoy a big cup of hot cocoa with a lot of marshmallow fluff on top.
- Skiing - Due to Canadian weather conditions, during the December holidays it tends to snow a lot, therefore Canadian people like to go skiing.
- Opening presents - Canadians open presents underneath their Christmas trees on the 25th of December as a Christmas tradition.
French Traditions:
- Eat fois gras - French people like to enjoy a plate of fois gras during the Christmas holidays.
- Eating frog legs - Just like fois gras, frog legs are also a big part of French traditions when it comes to festive days.
- Opening presents - In French culture, they don’t wait until the morning of the 25th but rather the night of 24th.
