We've got all the major Chinese ones such as Chinese New Year, mid autumn festival etc. St Patty's day for her Irish side. What to celebrate for the German side???
What cultural holidays will you be celebrating with LO?
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Does St. Patrick's day and Oktoberfest count? Also there are some German traditions we'll be carrying over into our Christmas.
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Chinese New Year!
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@NaturallyCathy: like what???
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We celebrate Chinese new Year and that's it for the cultural ones!
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@regberadaisy: A lot of Christmas is already Germanic! Yuletide, etc...
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Cinco de Mayo! We Texans love an excuse to sit on a patio and drink margaritas, although that's not quite how I would celebrate with kids. Any holidays that are patriotic, Texas-ey or Christian are fair game for me! I don't have any unique cultural roots to trace back.
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Chinese New Year for sure!!!
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@regberadaisy: My father actually lived in Germany as a child for a few years because my grandfather was stationed there in the army. Because of this, we grew up learning and speaking basic German - sometimes he would ask us to count and we'd count in English, then he would wait until we were done and tell us to count properly and we'd count in German. Then of course there were the conversations but anyways...
One of the things that he taught us was the Christmas carols they used to sing in Germany when he lived there with my aunts, grandmother, and grandfather. There was "Kling, Glockchen" about the Christ child at the door, ringing the bell, asking the children to let him into their hearts; there was also, along a similar vein, "Alle Jahre weider kommt das Christuskind", about how the Christ child came every year and blesses everyone; then of course "Stille Nacht," or Silent Night. Those were our favorite carols to sing too.
Something else they would do in Germany was leave their shoes outside their door for Christuskind to fill with toys and goodies if they had been good. One of the things that would end up in their shoe is foil wrapped gold chocolate coins. When we were growing up, he would put the gold coins in our stockings just like he used to get in Germany.
Things like that.
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@mrbee: True, but these are things that were passed down rather than the usual American-English-German Christmas most people think of today. See my above post.
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@NaturallyCathy: thank you soooo much!!! My FIL doesn't really follow any gean customs but I want to teach our kids about all thei heritage.
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@NaturallyCathy: And let us not forget Belsnickel and Krampus!
Was amazed to see on Wikipedia that it's still a real tradition in Pennsylvania Dutch communities!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belsnickel -
Cinco de mayo is fun! Good idea tororojo
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@mrbee: You know, I've never watched 'The Office'. And yes, Belsnickel was something else he taught us about but he preferred the Christ child and Sinterklaas.
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Mardi Gras. My DH loved it as a kid. Going to visit my DH's mom will be a good excuse to go to some kid parades.
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all of them haha!!
I love the idea of raising LO to celebrate all cultures and it's fun to learn about all of them!
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We have a million Jewish holidays. Purim and passover are coming up next.
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@artbee: Do you celebrate Tu B'Shevat? DD is learning about that now at school!
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@SAHM0811: a little bit. Right now we just have a book that I read lo about it.... When lo gets older well be able to do more like plant a tree, etc.
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The only major one will probably be Dia de los Difuntos (Day of the Dead) on Nov. 2nd. It is a BIG DEAL in DH's home country, so we will do that. I think we'll also try to incorporate some of the traditional foods into Easter/Holy week.
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@Mrs. Pen: all the ones I'm talking about are actually her heritage. She's German/Irish/English & Chinese!
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