It’s December, and that means it’s the holiday season in the United States! The holiday season can mean different things to different people and communities across the country. While some 美国ns prefer to celebrate the winter season in general or nothing at all, 12月有几个重要的文化节日, 包括圣诞节, 光明节, 和宽扎节.  Regardless of what you celebrate this holiday or winter season, we encourage exchange students to explore some of the diverse traditions and celebrations that take place during this festive month.

在美国，有一件事是肯定的.S. 圣诞节是无法避免的. 大约90%的美国人, 无论是宗教的还是非宗教的, 说他们庆祝圣诞节. Needless to say, Christmas itself is an important holiday for 美国n retail stores. 无论你往哪里看, 似乎, there are advertisements and decorations to put you in the gift-buying spirit.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by all of the different traditions associated with Christmas in the U.S. The goal of this article is to try to explain at least a small handful of these traditions.

圣诞树

Decorating a Christmas tree dates back to the year 1536 when Martin Luther, 德国的宗教改革家, was inspired by the twinkling of stars through the branches of pine trees in the forest.  It is a widely held belief that he was the first to set up a tree in his home and decorate it with candles. With the marriage of Queen Victoria to the German Lutheran prince Albert von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 这一传统传到了英国, where it quickly became popular within the upper class. The holiday’s special focus on children and family also began with Victoria and Albert, 谁有九个小王子和公主. Upper-class 美国ns, always attentive to new fashions from 英国, eventually began putting up Christmas trees of their own, 它很快成为美国的一个中心传统.S. Today, many 美国ns set up their Christmas trees after Thanksgiving. Many trees are purchased at  local Christmas tree lots, which often serve as fundraisers for local Boy Scout troops. Others take advantage of the vast fir and spruce forests of North 美国 and, 向政府收取一小笔费用, cut down their own Christmas trees from approved forest areas.

圣诞老人

Everyone knows that 圣诞老人 visits each home on Christmas Eve and delivers gifts to children. 但是这个传统是怎么开始的呢? 圣诞老人 has his origins in a fourth-century Christian bishop named 尼古拉斯, who 住在中东，也就是现在的土耳其. 尼古拉斯是该地区有影响力的人物. 除了创造奇迹, he earned a reputation for generosity and for saving children from danger. 他死后, Christians declared him the patron saint of children and honored him with a special day, 12月6日, 哪些人通过给孩子们送礼物来庆祝. 在荷兰，他在那里为人所知 就像Sinter Klaas, St. 尼古拉斯 merged with local legends of spirits who rewarded good children and punished naughty ones. When Dutch colonists founded the colony of New Amsterdam, 也就是后来的纽约市, 他们带来了这个传统. 圣诞老人, 正如这个人物在英语中所知的那样, 1823年以后变得特别流行, 当一首诗 圣来访. 尼古拉斯 刊登在纽约的报纸上. The poem did much to shape the image of 圣诞老人 that we know today, and it forever linked the story of the gift-giving St. 尼古拉斯与平安夜.

姜饼人和姜饼屋

Baking cookies and treats is very popular during this time of year and one of the most popular cookies during Christmas time is the gingerbread cookie. These hard and heavily spiced cookies date all the way back to Medieval Europe. 从罗马时代开始, people had been importing spices like ginger from the Middle East and Asia, 到了10世纪, 在面包食谱中加入姜变得很流行. As the spice trade grew, these breads also came to include cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Queen Elizabeth I is credited with being the first to have gingerbread cookies cut in the shape of people she knew and would even have the cookies coated in 金色的叶子. Soon it became very fashionable to decorate gingerbread men in elaborate designs. Gingerbread houses originated in Germany, where gingerbread is very popular. Some historians believe that bakers began creating them to copy the gingerbread house covered in candy from the Grimm’s fairy tale 《韩赛尔和格蕾特. 一段时间以来, these gingerbread houses were just as ornate as the gingerbread cookies and coated in 金色的叶子 decorations. Nowadays, many decorate them in a simple white frosting and adorn them with small candies. Consider baking or decorating gingerbread with 你的 family or sharing 你的 own traditional holiday treats!

We hope this article has helped explain at least some of the Christmas traditions you might encounter in the U.S.! If you and 你的 host family celebrate Christmas, we encourage you to share some of 你的 圣诞节传统(和食物)!)从你的祖国. 不管你是否或如何庆祝, the holiday season is about spending quality time with 你的 family and friends and celebrating 你的 accomplishments during the past year. We hope that you enjoy this special season with 你的 host family and new friends you have made in the U.S. and take a moment to pat 你的self on the back for all the ways you have grown this past year!