Miami Herald "The holiday season is all about traditions, but these traditions differ from country to country around the world. For example:
▪ In Denmark, it’s traditional, on Christmas Eve, to fill a bathtub with oatmeal.
▪ In Russia, rural families observe the holidays by dressing a live sturgeon as a dental hygienist.
▪ In Bolivia, children place their shoes next to the fireplace at bedtime; when they fall asleep, the parents sneak out of the house and check into a resort hotel for several weeks.
These are just a few of the colorful international traditions that serve to remind us, as Americans, how weird foreign people are. Of course we have holiday traditions, too, but ours are normal:
▪ Our retail stores let us know that the holidays are here by putting up festive holiday decorations shortly after Labor Day.
▪ Our radio stations remind us of the true meaning of the season by playing sacred holiday songs, such as “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”
▪ Starbucks gets us into the holiday spirit by introducing a specialty seasonal coffee beverage containing a mutant holiday ingredient, such as giblets (the “Turkey-spresso”).
▪ And in an endless parade of TV commercials, sellers of automobiles, jewelry, liquor, power tools, etc., urge us, in the true spirit of the season, to give money to the poor.
"Ha ha! That last one was of course a joke. In fact these companies urge us to purchase their products. Because in the end, the most important holiday tradition of all is the tradition of buying things whether anybody needs them or not." . . .
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