Why Spending Your Holidays Abroad Is A Great Idea

It’s finally time for the holidays! And you know what that means…

Vacation time!

Every country around the world will be celebrating some form of holiday. While some countries don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, they still hop on the bandwagon with everyone else to enjoy the season anyway.

When you do choose to go on a vacation abroad, you’re going to have to choose which country to visit carefully.

If you are currently dating a foreign woman, you may want to go spend your holidays with her in her country so you get to have a foreign Christmas. It makes for a better vacation since not only will you be spending time with her and making her happy, you’ll also get to experience something new and interesting for this year’s Christmas.

As for what’s in store for you, let’s look at how everyone else celebrates the holidays and learn about the many Christmas traditions around the world.

Christmas in Europe

In Europe, “Christmas” is celebrated for considerably longer than a single day. The season lasts for more than a month, not to extend the shopping season, but to accommodate the numerous holy days and festivities. Spending your Christmas with foreign women here could be different from what you’re used to.

There’s Advent, which starts four Sundays before Christmas Eve. The Feast of St. Nicholas follows on December 6, which is generally observed in Catholic countries.

The biggest event of the season for many Europeans is Christmas Eve, which is marked by a Midnight Mass and a lavish dinner. Other countries put a greater emphasis on Christmas Day and gift-giving. The “Twelve Days of Christmas” runs from December 25 to January 6 (the Epiphany, the day the Three Kings brought their gifts to the people). The season then goes into hibernation until the next year.

While there are many wonderful Christmas traditions in Europe, here are a few that you might be interested in:

• Ukraine

Because, like many other nations where the major church is the Orthodox Church, Ukraine celebrates Christmas on the 7th of January, they use the old “Julian” calendar for their church holidays.

On Christmas Eve on the 6th of January, the traditional Christmas supper, known as the “Sviata Vecheria” (or Holy Supper), is served. Traditionally, people fast (abstain from eating) for the entire day, but you could start the day by drinking holy water blessed at church.

You must wait until the first star appears in the sky before beginning to enjoy dinner. So as soon as it starts to grow dark in the afternoon, everyone (especially the hungry ones!) rush outside to try to identify the first star. The star symbolizes the Wise Men’s search for Jesus, as well as highlighting Jesus’ birth, allowing Christmas to begin!

• Russia

Russia celebrates Christmas on January 7th as well. They perceive Christmas as a strictly religious holiday and as a time for family to be together. Families attend the Christmas liturgy and gather together for a traditional meal.

Fortune-telling is one of the most popular Russian Orthodox Christmas traditions. The period between January 6 and 19 (Epiphany) is known as “svyatki” (from the word “holy”), and it has profound pagan origins so deep that even the church could not outright prohibit it. Slavic people thought it was a period when spirits would run amok, and they used it to predict their destiny.

While peasants tried to guess the weather and the harvest, young ladies thought of their grooms.

Christmas in Asia

There are a few countries that have made Christmas an official holiday. But for the most part, it is a secular event rather than a religious one. Still, you can often see extravagant Christmas decorations, hear Christmas songs, and even see Santa Claus in major Asian cities (or a variation of his) when you go around Asian countries.

After all, this is a Western holiday that plays a huge part in Asian marketing - big shopping malls don’t miss out on the opportunity to introduce numerous sales and activities around these times. Your holiday abroad will be the same scene shopping-wise if you decide to stay somewhere in Asia for Christmas.

• The Philippines

Because the Philippines is a Catholic country, the Simbang Gabi is a religiously practiced holiday tradition among most of the populace.

In anticipation of Christmas Day, Filipinos participate in the Simbang Gabi, a nine-day series of dawn masses that happen during 3 am or 4:30 am until sunrise, depending on which mass hour you choose to attend. It’s a challenge for churchgoers to complete the nine dawn masses since the “ber” months bring chilly mornings. Traditionally, church goers make a wish upon the completion of the nine masses.

• Thailand

In Thailand, about 90% of the population are Buddhists. But with Buddhism being very accepting, they still allow and enjoy Christmas, as well as celebrate other Christian festivals during the holiday season.

So if you’re going to go to Thailand for the holidays, don’t expect a typical Christmas vacation. They have their own holidays, which are more important to them than Christmas. But since Christmas is a huge commercial holiday there, you still get to enjoy most aspects of the season.

• China

In China, much like Thailand, Christmas isn’t considered much of a holiday. But that doesn’t mean they don’t celebrate it in their own way. What they do is heavily advertise Christmas. The Chinese aren’t adverse to the holidays and they definitely aren’t adverse to shopping.

They are aware that the holidays make people spend money. It gives many people a reason to look forward to the holidays.

In China, they give out apples as one of their Christmas traditions. Funnily enough, this tradition started from a pun. And their New Year’s Eve, which is also celebrated by a lot of countries aside from China itself, is known as Ping’an Ye. This means a quiet and peaceful evening. In Mandarin, the word for apple, pingguo, is pronounced similarly to the word peace.

Christmas in Latin America

You could say that Latin America has simple holiday traditions. Mostly because they are also very family oriented and have similar traditions like in Europe or Asia.

For example, the Noche Buena. It’s the Midnight Feast, which Europe and Asia also do on the night before Christmas. There are these:

• Colombia

Colombia celebrates Christmas early because of El Día de las Velitas (the Day of the Little Candles) on December 7.

The tradition stretches back to 1854, when Pope Pius IX declared the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception to be the Catholic Church’s official doctrine. While the religious importance is significant, with so many lights dotting Colombia’s calles, there is no shortage of celebration around this time to start off the Christmas season.

• Peru

Nacimientos (Nativity scenes) are taken seriously in Peru. The annual Nacimiento competition is held at the Instituto Cultural Teatral y Social, in which Latina women and men from all around the country compete to portray Jesus’ birth. The competition, which has been held every year since 2005, produces a variety of unique Nativity scenes that incorporate elements from Peru’s various regions.

A Romantic Christmas

If your lover is from any of these countries, spend your Christmas with her. Enjoy the holidays like she does and celebrate the things she’s always been celebrating since she was young.

It counts as a vacation and a date all in one!