Hello!
Today we are going to learn about the Christmas traditions of
Greenland. Greenland is home to Polar Inuit villages where the
families like to visit with the others and have little parties. When
they get together they drink coffee and have cakes and they exchange
gifts. The most common gifts are sealskin mittens, model sledges or
pairs of polished walrus tusks. The walrus tusks sound fun to me! In
the village everyone will get a gift and the children go to house to
house, singing carols. On Christmas Eve, most of the people go to
church, often in their national dress. Men will wear white anoraks
that are only ever used for special occasions like this one.
In
Greenland, it's too cold to grow Christmas Trees, so they import them
from Denmark. Their trees are lit up with candles and they hang
bright ornaments. Occasionally they will have tiny sealskin pants on
their trees which are called kamik. Trees in Greenland are brought in
on December 23rd.
Those who don't have an imported tree make a traditonal tree made
with driftwood and decorated in heather.
Because
Greenland is so very dark all the time, they have a practice of
lighting up the skies a bit with bright stars hung in windows. All
the villages have their own Christmas Tree on a hill where it can be
seen by the whole town. These are always erected to be ready for
Advent to begin. Greenland also celebrates St. Lucia's Day, which I
covered in detail recently for Swedish Christmas tradtions.
Ok,
this is where Christmas in Greenland loses me. They have some very
weird foods they enjoy for the holidays, like whale skin with a strip
of blubber called Mattak. Apparently this tastes like coconut, but I
would not take them up on it if offered. The people also eat
something called kiviak which is the raw flesh of a bird called the
auk. They bury this for months whole and covered in sealskin. It
actually decomposes! They like to eat suaasat which is a soup that's
made of barbecued caribou and raw or cooked fish.
On
Christmas night, they have a time where the men are now to pamper the
women by personally serving the food to them, even going so far as to
stir the meal for them! After the Christmas meal, games are played.
Greenland
is the country that says where Santa Claus goes for his vacation! He
has a summer home near the town of Uummannaq. There are two languages
spoken in Greenland, Inuit/Greenlandic and Danish. So Juullimi
Pilluarit or Glaedelig Jul!
0 comments:
Post a Comment