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Festivity
- Christmas in United States of America &
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In
the United States Christmas is celebrated with
high spirit and enthusiasm with Caroling,
feasting, decorations, Santa Claus, crib, prayers,
greetings and gift giving to honor
the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25th.These
different elements of traditions opted from different
places in its Christmas
celebrations. The Christmas
tree tradition comes from Germany, parades
from Latin America, carols from the English and
Australians, Santa Claus
in (the 1860’s) from the Europeans and so
on. Early European settlers brought many traditions
to the United States.
Father Christmas
is known as Santa Claus in America .There is also
a town called Santa Claus. All the letters which
are posted in America addressed to Santa go there
to be dealt with. An average of three million
letters a year is posted to Santa in America.
A statue of twenty-three foot high stands in Santa's
honor. There are two homes
for Santa Claus in the United States one
is in Torrington, Connecticut,
where Santa and his helpers give out presents.
The other home is in Wilmington,
New York, where a village for Santa and
his reindeer is located.
The traditional Christmas
dinner in USA is roast turkey /
goose, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin
pies, fruitcakes, plum puddings and with vegetables
and sauces. For dessert it is rich, fruity
Christmas pudding with brandy
sauce and mince pies, pastry cases filled
with a mixture of chopped dried fruit.
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However,
Christmas celebrations vary greatly between regions
and place to place in United States, because it
depends on the nationalities which have settled
therein.
Churches are often wonderfully decorated on Christmas
with poinsettias
flowers, Christmas evergreens and Nativity scenes.
Get-togethers with friends, folks or sweetheart
are quite common.
Throughout the 20th century, the United States
experienced Christmas controversies; despite it
being declared a federal holiday on June 26, 1870
by then-U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. The importance
of the economic impact of the secular Christmas
holiday was reinforced in the 1930s when President
Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed moving the Thanksgiving
holiday date to extend the Christmas shopping
season and boost the economy during the Great
Depression. Religious leaders protested this move,
with a New York Times roundup of Christmas sermons
showing the most common theme as the dangers of
an increasingly commercial Christmas. Debates
continued into the 21st century. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas).
Christmas in Canada is quite similar to Christmas
in the United States.
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