Christmas traditions

Of course you already now that life in Papua is very different than life in America.  I wanted to share some Christmas traditions that we have experienced here in Indonesia so you can get a taste of just how different life is.  

Papua is considered a Christian province, much like American is a Christian nation.  Christmas is a lot less family oriented and much more focused on church activities.  People start preparing for their Christmas event as early as November (maybe sooner for some)!  Since there are so many different tribal groups out here each group has their own Christmas gathering.  It's common for national you know to come around asking for contributions to fund their event.  It varies from group to group, but generally these events consist of multiple speaches or sermons, lots of singing and a meal to wrap it up.  The meal itself is quite an ordeal.  They cook the food in traditional Papuan style.  Covered with banana leaves and hot rocks.  

Another tradition is visiting.  On Christmas day and the day after people spend most of their day visiting friends and co-workers.  The hosts serve lots of cookies and drinks and depending on the famiy they may even serve a meal.  I find this to be an interesting tradition.  It's very similar to what Muslims do at the end of the fasting month.  The difference is for Idul Fitri we would do all of the visiting to our neighbors house.  At Christmas friends and neighbors usually come to our house.  In the past this is one tradition we have participated in fully.  This year we chose to stay home with the kids instead of taking them around to house after house.  Although they enjoy all the tasty snacks it's hard for them to sit still for the long conversations!!

A final tradition that we were surprised by and just learned about this year is in relation to Santa! Parents sign up at their church to have Santa visit their kids.   Santa, a couple of fairies, and some guys painted with black tar hop into a pick up truck.  They drive to the childs house and the guys in black go in and make the children feel bad and ridicule them for being naughty, almost to the point of tears. Then santa and the fairies come in and make the kids feel better. Sometimes they may even give small gifts like candy.  We found out about this tradition because we saw the truck full of people drive by our house.  We had never seen anything like that in Sumatra, so we asked a friend what it was all about!  They even offered to come to our house, but we gently turned them down!!

Merry Christmas to your family!  We would love to hear what some of your traditions are!