What do other folk eat and drink at Christmas?

Australia: 

Christmas is in midsummer and lunch is often a barbecue of prawns, steak and chicken with ice cream or sorbet for desert, maybe cooked at the beach. 
Finland: 

Traditional Christmas dinner will be a casserole of macaroni, rutabaga, carrot and potato, with ham or turkey. 

Germany:

Roast Goose is the favoured Christmas meal, accompanied by potatoes, cabbage, carrots, parsnip and pickles. The meal is usually eaten on Christmas Eve. 

Greenland:

The Christmas feast may include Little Auks, (these are seabirds that are a bit like Penguins), wrapped in sealskin and buried for months until decomposed. Yum Yum! 

Latvia:

Christmas dinner is cooked brown peas with bacon sauce, small pies, cabbage and sausage. 
Portugal:

A special Christmas meal is salted dry cod-fish with boiled potatoes eaten at midnight on Christmas Eve. 

Russia:

Christmas food includes cakes, pies and meat dumplings. 

Sweden: 

A Christmas meal eaten on Christmas Eve includes pork, herring fish, and brown beans. 

United Kingdom:

Christmas Pudding and Mince Pies are top grub. The largest Christmas Pudding weighed 7,231 pounds (3.28 tonnes) and was made at Aughton, Lancashire on July 11, 1992. The largest Mince Pie weighed 2,260 pounds (1.02 tonnes) and measured 6.1m X 1.5m. It was baked in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire on October 15, 1932. Sadly the Pie was destroyed in a German air raid when the pilot of a Stuka dive-bomber mistook it for a train. (Actually, that last bit is untrue... but it could have happened.) 

USA:

Christmas lunch is often fast food because time is money and lunch is for wimps, e.g. burgers, chilli-dogs, curry, pizza, fries and root beer. 

Christmas drinks

Champagne is a traditional Christmas tipple and millions of bottles of bubbly are enjoyed every year. Scientists calculate that there are 49 million bubbles in a bottle of Champagne. 

Around the world special Christmas Beers are made by brewers. These are usually dark, sweet brews of exceptional strength and flavour and especially suitable for drinking in extreme cold weather conditions and office parties. 

Mulled wine, (Gluhwein), is a popular Christmas drink in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. It contains red wine, fruit, cloves and cinnamon and is served hot by street vendors at Christmas Fairs, (Weihnachtfest) - this s also sold during the ski season on the slopes of many European resorts. 

Christmas customs

Advent

This is a customary time of contemplation and preparation for Christmas and has parallels with the season of Lent that precedes Easter. Advent is celebrated in Churches for four Sundays prior to Christmas Day and an Advent Wreath is commonly used. This comprises seasonal plants, e.g. holly and ivy and usually has four red candles surrounding a central white one. Each Sunday of Advent a candle is lit during the service until on Christmas Day all four red and the central white candle are burning. 

Advent Calendars are popular with children as they usually contain a piece of chocolate or a picture for each day starting from 1 December and ending on Christmas Day. Part of the fun of Christmas is opening a new flap each day to obtain the small gift underneath. 

The Yule log

The Yule log originates from Scandinavian pagan festivals and spread around Europe during the Viking conquests. Custom states that a log is chosen in the forest, decorated with ribbons and brought home. On the homeward journey tradition demanded that anybody meeting the procession should salute the Log by raising their hat. Once home the Yule Log was lit on Christmas Day and burnt during all 12 days of Xmas (so it had to be a pretty big Log). The remains of the Log were retained as kindling for the following year's fire and were also kept as a lucky charm to ward off fire and lightening from the home.

Certain people were excluded from the presence of the burning Yule Log including barefoot women and people with squints or flat feet. The reasons for these exclusions have been long forgotten.

In Cornwall the Yule Log was known as The Mock and children were encouraged to stay awake until midnight to drink to The Mock for good luck.

In the county of Devon, England, a variation of the custom is practised. This is called the Ashen Faggot (a faggot is a bundle of sticks tied together). A faggot of Ash wood is made and bound with nine bands of green Ash. It is carried home and set on a fire using a piece of last year's faggot. Each unmarried maiden of the household must choose a band and custom states that the girl whose band ignites first will be the next to be married.

Similar to the yule log was the Christmas candle. It too was lit on Christmas Eve, usually just at dusk. Care was taken to keep it burning at least as long as the hosts were still up (if not all night, depending on regional custom). Like the yule log, a proper Christmas candle could not be bought, so grocers made a practice of handing them out to customers. A bit of the burnt-down candle was also preserved from one year to the next as a lucky charm for the household. 

A much more popular version of the yule log is available to modern society — the "buche de noel." Rolled, frosted in chocolate, and decorated to look like a yule log, this sponge cake is served as part of the Christmas Eve meal in France called reveillon, which takes place after midnight Mass. 

Christmas tree

Today the Tree is a central feature of the Xmas celebrations but its origins are ancient and pre-date Christianity.

Pagans used trees as part of their religious ceremonies. The Druids decorated Oak trees with fruit and candles in honour of their Gods of the Harvest. During the Roman festival of Saturnalia, trees were decorated with gifts and candles. The Vikings regarded evergreen coniferous trees as symbols that the darkness of Winter would end and that Spring would return.

So how did the Tree become part of Xmas? One legend tells of St. Boniface who encountered some German pagans about to sacrifice a child at the base of an Oak tree. He cut down the Oak to prevent the sacrifice and a Fir tree grew in its place. St Boniface told the pagans that this was the Tree of Life and represented Christ.

Another legend ascribes the Xmas tree to Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism. The legend tells how Luther saw the stars shining through the branches of a forest as he walked at night giving him an impression of twinkling lights. The beauty of this so impressed him that he cut down a small evergreen and brought it into his home to recreate the scene using lighted candles on the tree's branches. Germany seems to have started the use of a decorated tree as part of Christmas. When trees were scarce a wooden pyramid was sometimes used and this would be decorated with branches and candles. In Britain the Xmas tree tradition was popularised in 1841 by Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, (both of German descent), who decorated a tree at Windsor Castle with candles, fruits, gingerbread and sweets. The use of the Christmas tree spread to America with German emigrants.

Nowadays the Xmas tree, (real or synthetic), is seen worldwide in homes, Churches, workplaces and cities. A famous tree is the one placed every year in Trafalgar Square, London, a gift from the people of Norway in gratitude for the help that Britain gave during World War II.

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