A Christmas Whapping

My older brothers had a favourite Christmas tradition. They used to save up cardboard tubes from rolls of wrapping paper and whap me with them until my mother made them stop.

In time, our Christmas traditions became less violent. They involved sleeping under the Christmas tree, making Norwegian lefsa, and cramming our house with relatives to eat too much and recount stories of Christmas past.

Do you have some Christmas traditions?

In Caracas, Venezuela, it is customary for the entire city to roller-skate to early morning Christmas Mass. There are so many roller skaters, that the city is blocked off in many areas before 8 a.m.

In Germany, children leave a boot or shoe outside their bedroom door. If they’ve been good little children (have you met some?) a tree branch covered in sweets is their reward. If they have misbehaved they will receive just a tree branch (I’ve had some of those.)

In Slovakia, the eldest man in the house takes a spoonful of loksa pudding and throws it at the ceiling–the more that sticks, the better.

In Japan, it’s become a tradition, thanks to the power of advertising, to eat a KFC Chicken dinner on Christmas Eve. This often requires ordering weeks in advance, or waiting in line for hours.

In Bavaria, a noisy Christmas tradition has taken hold. Wearing the traditional costume of lederhosen, Bavarian highlanders fire mortars into the air.

South Africans celebrate by eating plump, fuzzy caterpillars of the emperor moth, fried in oil. Yum.

Greenlanders eat Mattak, a raw whale skin served with blubber, and Kiviak, a seal skin stuffed with dead auk birds, then buried and left to ferment for 3 months. Auk is right. I think a Scotsman tried to introduce Haggis to them, but couldn’t remember the recipe.

On Christmas Eve, North American kids are told that Santa rides a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer, but bounces on a kangaroo in Australia, clumps by donkey in Switzerland, is dropped from Heaven on a golden cord into the Czech Republic, and paddles an outrigger canoe pulled by dolphins in Hawaii.

For many, that’s all Christmas is. A tradition. The sweet hymns stir warm memories as we frantically shop, but the lyrics are largely ignored. The child in a manger makes a nice ornament, but we live as if He never lived. But He came, splitting the calendar into BC and AD, shining a light on our dark world that has never and will never be extinguished. God’s promise was fulfilled and hope came to stay.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).

Wherever you are and whatever you eat, warm Christmas greetings from our house to yours. And now, I’d better run. The grandkids are coming over and I’ve been collecting those little cardboard wrapping paper tubes.
Let the whapping begin.