It's the Season for Holiday Traditions, Auntie!

It's the Season for Holiday Traditions, Auntie!

by Veronica Spettmann

‘Tis the season for all kinds of holidays for all kinds of Aunties! To prepare all of our Aunties for the festivities of winter, we thought it might be nice to put together another holiday fact sheet for our Auntourage. Here we have some of the origins for traditions in four of the season’s holidays: Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa.
Hanukkah
December *20-28, 2011

- “Hanukkah” means “dedication” in Hebrew.

- According to the Talmud, a central text in Judaism, Hanukkah is an eight-day celebration because of a miracle. When the Jews were rededicating the Second Temple (hence the “dedication” translation for Hanukkah), they only had enough oil to light the menorah for one day, but it remained lit for eight.

- Jews light an additional candle each night, from one to eight candles on the last night of the holiday.
- Because of the importance of oil in this story, a lot of traditional Jewish celebratory foods are fried in oil, like potato pancakes and jelly doughnuts.
- The four Hebrew letters on the four sides of the dreidel mean a "great miracle happened there.” - Children today play with dreidels during Hanukkah to commemorate children who would use them to mask the fact that they had actually been studying from the Torah, despite the fact that that was outlawed by their Greek oppressors.

*Holiday begins at sundown on December 20th.

Yule
December 22, 2011
- “Yule” is from the Old Norse and means “Feast” or “Wheel” and is a celebration of the Winter Solstice, or the shortest day and the longest night of the year.
- Yule celebrates the death and re-birth of the Sun-God, who will fertilize the Mother Goddess for a fruitful spring.
- Yule, like most of the other seasonal holidays, is a celebration of light because it is the shortest day of the year.  This is why it is often commemorated with the Yule Log.
- Because Yule is associated with the wheel, no wheel is to be turned on Yule  or else it would show impatience with the “wheel of the sky,” or the sun.
- Yule is a 12-day holiday beginning on “Mother’s Night” and ending on “Yule Night. It is also the origin for the Christian song, “12 Days of Christmas.”

Christmas
December 25, 2011
- “Christmas” is from the Old English “Cristes Maesse,” or “mass of Christ.”
- Because the early American Puritans were very strict in their beliefs about indulging in decadence, Christmas was not a holiday in early America and was not declared a federal holiday until 1870.
- Santa Claus became an integral Christmas figure after novelist Washington Irving wrote him into a novel in 1809.
- Mistletoe was an ancient Celtic remedy for infertility and was associated with the Scandinavian goddess of love, which is likely why people kiss beneath mistletoe around Christmas.
- It is said that the tradition of the Christmas tree was based on the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

Kwanzaa
December 26, 2011-January 1, 2012
- Kwanzaa is derived from the Swahili phrase “matunda ya kwanza,” which means “first fruits.”
- Kwanzaa was created by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966 and celebrates the first harvests in Africa.
- Kwanzaa is centered around Seven Principles: Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity, and Faith.
- Those who practice Kwanzaa are encouraged to not mix the holiday or its symbols with those of any other culture, because it would go against the traditional Kwanzaa belief of staying true to one’s roots.
- Kwanzaa, unlike Hanukkah, Yule, and Christmas, is a cultural holiday rather than a religious one.


So, Aunties, you can share these fun facts with your nieces and nephews or in trivia games with your families at your various holiday celebrations. Whatever holiday you celebrate with your nieces and nephews, may your season be safe, happy, and full of promise for the coming year!


Published: November 30, 2011