When I was growing up in Asia, my mom practiced the following traditions every New Year:

• collect twelve types of fruit – one type for each month of the year. The fruit had to be somewhat round (circle is a shape of money and prosperity) and should come in two’s (for fertility).
• fill the larder, at least with basics – rice, salt, and sugar. An empty larder doesn’t bode well for the coming year.

As you can imagine, the prices of fruit and basic food items skyrocketed towards the end of December as people tried to fulfill the yearly tradition.

When I moved to Europe 17 years ago, I was surprised that superstitions and New Year symbolism also abound but quite different. People use different symbols to signify luck and prosperity for the New Year – symbols which I’ve never encountered before.

In shops, customers shopping get calendars and good luck charms in the form of:

• Gold coin replica
• Baby boy
• Pig
• Four-leaf clover
• Ladybug
• Chimney sweep

Gold is definitely the symbol of money and prosperity. The baby boy – Baby New Year - represents newness and youth. The pig stands for prosperity as well as health, whereas the four-leaf clover and the ladybug are symbols of luck. As for the chimney sweep, I can only speculate it has something to do with cleaning up the old year’s dirt to get on with the new.

Sometimes, the symbols are combined together. Last year, for example, I got from the pharmacy around the corner a clover-shaped candle with a plastic ladybug on it. From the baker’s it was a plastic replica of 1 EURO cent with again, a ladybug pasted on one side.

Regardless of cultural differences, it is interesting to see recurring themes for the New Year: youth, luck, and prosperity. After all, these are what New Year is all about, right?

If I told you that I spent half of Christmas Day, December 25, sewing and doing the laundry, would you believe me?

Yes, I did. Honest. The Christmas dinner had been eaten the night before (as German tradition goes), my husband was napping, while the kids were happily playing with their new toys. So I decided to catch up with the housework.

Of course, while working, I made phone calls to family and friends scattered around the globe – gosh, keeping track of those time zones can be tiring – to greet them a very Merry Christmas.

And in between, I reflected back to Christmases of childhood past. Of a large chaotic family. Of large feasts or simple fares depending on the finances of the season. Of fun, laughter, and Christmas carols. Of Christmas dinners on the terrace and Christmas lunches on the beach. Sorry for being so nostalgic but how I wish my kids could experience the kind of Christmas I had as a child.

When I moved to another country on another continent with another climate and culture, I then had to resign myself to a different way of celebrating Christmas, one that is quite, calm, and well – cold.

I am not complaining. I have many things to be grateful for. A happy home, a wonderful family, a warm house, a full pantry – and an afternoon walk around the lake with the whole family. My cup runs over (almost).

So how did you spend your Christmas?

For children in Switzerland, “Sami Claus” is the man in red, with long white beard and a big sack. Sounds familiar? Sure, except he comes every December 6 and his bag is filled – not with presents – but with nuts and gingerbread men for the stockings of those who’ve been good. And in other countries in Europe, “Nikolaus’” day of visit may be earlier or later. In Germany, he comes on the 7^th of December. In Belgium, it even varies whether you are living on the French part or the Dutch part and he adds oranges to the nuts which are then placed inside shoes.

Some families may decide to stick on the date of their country of origin regardless of where they move to. My son R’s friend had her Sami Claus goodies on December 5 they way they do it in Italy. When my family moved to Switzerland from Germany 2 years ago, we decided to follow the Swiss date.

Now, you may ask, who’s bringing the real presents to the kids? In Germany, depending on your religious inclination, it may be the “Weihnachtsman” (Father Christmas) or the “Christkind” (the child Jesus) and he comes at 6 pm on December 24.

Being part of a multicultural family living in another country is great. But it has its downside – especially at Christmas – when I am prone to mix up dates and botch up Christmas present deliveries ( as I did last year).

It was much simpler for me when I was a little girl. There was only Santa Claus coming on December 25. It’s a bit more complicated, even confusing for my boys. And I really sometimes dread the questions that come up about these Christmas delivery people because although I’m well-versed about the biography of Santa Claus, I’m not so familiar with the others.

Sami Claus, Weihnachtsman, Santa Claus. Who’s bringing what when?

Now, at 5 and a half, it seems that my boys have found the answers themselves. R was telling his twin brother last night.

“It’s Sami Claus who is coming tomorrow. He rides a donkey and he’s bringing nuts. Later Santa Claus will come. He rides on a sleigh and he will bring the presents.”

“But why does he come later?” asked the ever impatient F.

“Because he lives so far away in the North Pole.”

I find it so funny and sweet how they try to find and manage to find the answers themselves – from their friends, from books, and from their experience of the previous years. And I took my cue from their conversation as to what goes into their stockings that night.

Maybe someday when they are old enough, I’d show them this picture from a Christmas card made by Jenni Johnson. It sure does explain everything.

It’s another one of our family traditions. We started doing it even before we got married, continued doing through 5 years of childless marital togetherness and somehow managed to fit it in between nappy-changing and breastfeeding when our twins arrived.

Every year, I find that Christmas gets more hectic and busier and I always ask myself ‘Must I?’ ‘Do I really have to?’ And the answer is always a resounding ‘Yes!’

I am talking about the tradition of writing a Christmas letter. We started writing it while still dating. We continued to write our separate Christmas letters till we got married and then decided that one letter would suffice for a family. And the responsibility fell on my shoulders as the writer of the family.

So why do I do this, year after year, between Christmas and New Year, in whichever country or continent, mountain or ocean we might be in/on?

To keep in touch

We are a multicultural family. I’ve lived in 5 different countries in 2 continents. My husband has lived in 4 countries in 3 continents. We have family and friends scattered all over the globe. Our Christmas letter is a yearly update of what’s new in our life and what we’ve been up to.

To look back and look forward

We don’t keep diaries or personal blogs. But at the end of each year, we sit down and look back to the year that was. What were the highlights? What have we achieved? What went wrong? What could we have done better? And then we look forward to the upcoming year and put down on paper our plans. What do we want to achieve? Which country do we want to visit next?

To preserve the memories for our kids

Our twins are four-and-a-half years old. Although they sometimes have amazing memories, there will be lots of things they may forget as they grow older. The letters will preserve those memories for them. When they are old enough, they’d be able to read about their parents’ love story, the childless years, the difficult pregnancy, their babyhood years?

In other words, the Christmas letters tell the story of our lives.

In this day and age, this seems a very old-fashioned way of keeping records. We do distribute them electronically whenever we could. There are, however, still family members and friends who gladly get them in hard copy. And keep them.

So excuse me, everyone, I’ve got to log off. I have a Christmas letter to write.

I read an article today about a Japanese family who began a tradition of decorating a small, artificial Christmas tree back before WWII. That tree, and it’s symbol of more joyous times became a rallying point that carried the family thru the heartbreak of WWII, the atomic blast, and other heartbreaking events. Even during the war, when anything western would mean arrest, the family still kept up the tradition. A picture near the article shows an elderly Japanese man decorating a small fragile tree with ornaments.

This will be our son’s first Christmas. He won’t remember this year at all, but his sister’s have already spelled it out for him–and reminded me just in case I forgot(which I didn’t) all the things that we need to do for “Christmas” to happen.

The elves always come after Thanksgiving–no one knows when–but usually appear after someone has been exceptionally nice or things like that. They leave small gifts(found at the Dollar Store at the North Pole I suppose) in stockings and leave as quietly as they came. The elves started that tradition at my grandmother’s house 35 years ago. Back then, they gave scented Avon perfume and soap of course, but it’s still the same concept.

And of course, the Advent calendars that my great-grandparents would get for each of us so we could count down the days until Christmas. This year, our son watched his sister’s open up their calendars, but next year….just you wait!

Then, there’s always Christmas cookies! Though I am now living several states away from the rest of the family, my sister’s and I still continue the tradition started with my great grandmother, who baked extra treats during the Depression to sell to help feed her large family. My grandmother and my mother continued the tradition, as did my mother with us. When she passed away at a young age, my sisters’ and I continued the tradition. Despite divorces, job cuts, illness, or impending arrival of babies, we still got together to bake with all of our children. What a crazy, messy, fun time! Now, we each bake a recipe and box it up and send it to the others as we are far apart. A little bit of love in a box.

Every year, my grandfather would buy us a cookie cutter for Christmas. It was usually of something important that happened during that year, so it was special. As I bake my cookies this year, I pulled out the cookie cutters and told the stories to my children about a great-grandfather they never got to meet and the importance of each one of these special reminders of his love.

We all feel very blessed that we’ve been entrusted with a new life to share these traditions with. And, who knows, perhaps my grandchildren will be doing the same with their children, 70 years from now.