Syria

Christian children of Syria start Christmas on December 4, the anniversary of Saint Barbara, who was martyred about 235.  In spite of her suffering, the youthful martyr never wavered in her love toward God. This is why Syrian children like Saint Barbara, and their parents teach them of her courage and devotion.

Saint Barbara's Feast means candles of many colors, rich pastries, and candies. Someone always plays the part of saint in her long white robe and gleaming crown. To Syrians, the Saint Barbara celebration is similar to the American Christmas party. Instead of trimming a tree behind closed doors, the parents secretly decorate a table with lighted candles and with wheat-flour cakes, rich with nuts, sugar, and honey. The wheat is significant, because it commemorates the dead, and symbolizes the immortality of the soul.

When everything is ready, the children gather excitedly outside the party room doors. Saint Barbara, usually impersonated by a favorite aunt or close family friend, waits with the group. When at last the door opens, she leads the children in a procession around the table, all chanting the festival song.

The feast is a merry one, with good things to eat, singing, and masquerading. But Saint Barabara's Day is the time for sharing as well as receiving. Parents send their children with goodies and sweets to the homes of the poor and unfortunate. As the boys and girls present their offerings, they give the traditional greeting: "May God bless you and bring you happiness throughout the year. Father and Mother beg you to accept these gifts from us."

Germany

Christmas in Germany is a children's festival. Although Christmas Eve celebrations vary from place to place, families everywhere for carols, presents, and a tree with lights, gingerbread animals, red apples and gilded nuts.

In many places, the holiday excitement starts in November or early December with a holiday fair in the market place. Hamburg's ancient Dom is probably one of the most famous fairs, not only in Germany but in the world. The Christkindlsmarkt, Kris Kringle's Fair, in Nuremberg is so old that no one knows when it began.

This fair features Nuremberg's "gold angel." In medieval times people came to the fair from distant places, as they still do. They combined merrymaking, buying and selling with going to church. There they saw the priest symbolically "give away the Christ Child" to the children in the form of a doll. After the Reformation, when few remembered the original custom, the Christ Child doll became the Christmas angel. Today a child in gold-colored robes represents the gold angel, and recites verses of welcome to the fair.

Children and parents alike joyfully remember Christkindlsmarkt from one year to the next, for here are wonderful sights and smells, and the gold angel that once was the Christ Child doll.

Czechoslovakia

In Czechoslovakia, the children's Christmas begins on December 5, the Eve of Saint Nicholas. On this night Saint Mikulase, or Nicholas, comes down from heaven on a golden cord. On his back he carries a basket of apples, nuts and candies. Saint Mikulase is generous with these gifts - especially when Anicka and Honza are kind and thoughtful and remember their prayers. He also fills their empty stockings with holiday treats.

The day before Christmas is a time of fasting until the first star appears. Then the family sits down to a traditional supper that includes roe soup, fish, a special braided bread, and a holiday cake, rich in almonds and raisins. Adults say that a child who does not eat until the evening meal will see the Golden Pig - but no one have seen him yet.

On Christmas Eve there is always a lighted tree with a Bethlehem, or miniature Nativity scene under the branches. In some places Jezisek, the little Jesus Christ, visits the children on His night and leaves them presents.

At twelve o'clock everyone attends the Midnight Mass, or the Angelic Mass, as it is often called. Christmas Day is a family holiday when people usually stay quietly at home.

Poland

When the first star appears on Christmas Eve, Polish families gather to end the holiday fast. First, the head of the household breaks an oplatek, a thin large round wafer, which each person and exhanges wishes for happiness and health. The priest blesses these wheat-flour wafers, which are peculiar to Christmas. They are baked in cast-iron molds and stamped with pictures of the Nativity. Friends and relatives often buy oplatki and enclose them in letters to absent relatives and friends. In rural areas peasants divide the wafers among their cattle, horses ad sheep so that animals, too, may share the blessings of Christmas.

The Wigilia, or Christmas Eve supper, is a delightful occasion. The linen feast cloth looks lumpy in spots because a little hay has been tucked under it here and there as a reminder that Jesus was born in a manger. In some homes there is an extra place at the table, for any stranger who may knock at the door.

Supper itself is a wonderful meal. There are thirteen courses, in memory of Christ and the Twelve Apostles. Usually there is almond or beetroot soup served with mushroom patties. There are many kinds of fish, a poppy-seed paste, and for dessert wheat or rice with honey sauce.

To end the meal, there are dozens and dozens of small honey or seed cakes and more preserves and confections than anyone can count.

The Christmas tree usually stands in a room by itself. There are colored candles and decorations of nuts, apples and all kinds of homeade ornaments. Often the most charming decorations are made from eggshells, blown out at either end and suspended from the branches of threads.

Netherlands

Throughout Christmas, the townsfolk of the Netherlands observe the custom of midwinterhoorn blazen, or blowing the midwinter horn from the four corners of the medieval church tower. The champion horn blower of the district selects by competition the best horn blowers from fourteen parishes.

The midwinter horn musicians announce the arrival of Advent at five in the morning until January 6, Three Kings' Day, when Christmas in Holland officially ends. The horn players' composition is unique. Each musician sounds just one note on his horn at one time. When the first note stops, the second begins. When the second note stops, the third begins, and so on, until the entire melody is played.

The winter horn measures about forty-five inches in length. Usually it is cut from sections of birchwood. When screwed together they form a long, graceful horn. The mouthpiece is made of elder. After the crude horn has been thoroughly soaked in water, it produces a shrill monotonous sound that will carry nearly two miles across the level countryside.

All through the holidays farmers play their horns at night, over the wells on their farms. The frozen surface acts as a sounding board. On dark winter nights, when everything is still, the notes of the horns reverberate from all directions across the ice-sheeted meadows and make music that is primitive and wild.

In pre-Christian times people blew horns at midwinter to expel demons and evil spirits. Today the Netherland farmers blow their horns to banish winter darkness, and welcome Jesus, the Light of the World, to the hearts of men.

Sweden

The Swedish Christmas season starts on December 13.  This day is known as Luciadagen, or Saint Lucia's Day. This day is celebrated by rich and poor in every part of the country.

Saint Lucia is always represented by a young girl who wears a white dress and crimson sash and stockings. She has a lingon, or whortleberry leaf crown, into which white lighted candles are inserted.

She announces Yuletide at dawn by stopping at the bedside of each member of the family with a tray of coffee and cakes. The custom goes back to the legend of Saint Lucia, who was condemned to death in 304 during the reign of the Roman Emperor, Diocletian.

In Swedish homes, the oldest daughter enacts the role of Saint Lucia. In some villages one young girl is elected to visit each house-hold with a tray of coffee and cakes. In Stockholm and other large cities there are many Lucia Brides.

In smaller places Saint Lucia usually makes her rounds alone. Sometimes groups of young parishioners accompany her. The boys, who are called Star Boys, wear white costumes and tall peaked caps decorated with cut-outs of moon and stars. They always carry a paper star lantern fasted to the end of a long pole. The star - which is lighted from inside - revolves like a pinwheel. The girls wear long white dresses. They carry lighted white tapers.

Sometimes baker boys are in the group. They offer ginger cookies and "Lucy cats," or buns flavored with crushed cardamon and baked in the shape of a letter X. Originally the form probably stood for the Greek letter chi, which looks like an X and begins the name of Christ.

Lorraine, France

In Lorraine, Saint Nicholas is looked up to as the guardian of the province. As such, he is the special patron of its children, and his feast day, December 6th. This does not mean that Saint Nicholas neglects his annual visits to other parts of France. It is just that he feels more at home in Lorraine, and his own boys and girls make a great fuss over him. The saint always brings them candies and nuts if they are good.

In various parts of Lorraine, the saint walks through the streets on his anniversary. The children always cheer and clap at the sight of Saint Nicholas in his crimson bishop robes and pointed miter. However, in contrast, the children shrink back in fear from his inseparable companion, Pere Fouettard.

Le Pere carries a bundle of switches and has an uncomfortably long memory. He always seems to know which boys and girls were disobedient during the past twelve months. Now and then he playfully smacks some youngster's toes in passing but, guilty children fear the possibility of an actual whipping. Even worse, Le Pere may advise Saint Nicholas to pass them by when he makes his secret rounds at night.

On saint's eve, boys and girls of Lorraine place their shoes near the chimney. After singing a few songs to Saint Nicholas, the children go to bed. In the morning the shoes overflow with sweetmeats. But since Per Fouettard is always alert to naughtiness, even good children receive ribbon-tied burch twigs, along with gifts from the saint.