Culture Shock on Christmas tradition.
By ibuemma
@ibuemma (2953)
United States
June 15, 2007 11:08am CST
Well this happen after me and my husband just got married. Here in United States where my hubby come from Christmas is tradition of exchanging gift with friends and family. His family that we gathered around on Christmas time probably total 15. It means we gotta remember to get gift for them. Now when just got married we were in Indonesia and me and my family gathered also for Christmas. A week before that my hubby said," come on let's go shopping for gifts, how many people gonna be at this Christmas Dinner? Do you have their name?" And I told him it's gonna be around 120 people cause my family pretty big...He shocked and kind of like 'oh my god, do we have enough money to get them gifts?" Now i got it1 I told him that in Indonesia we not really have that "exchange gift" traditions.LOL...we all gonna be bancrupt every Christmas then...
1 person likes this
3 responses
@wiccania (3360)
• United States
15 Jun 07
It can definitely be an interesting experience when people from different cultures come together. I had a co-worker many years ago from England, who had married an American soldier. She came to work one day and said "Just what the he!! is Halloween, and why do I need a costume for it?" Apparently their 7 year old daughter, who had at that point spent her entire life in England and Germany, brought a note home about the class Halloween party and that everyone should bring their costumes to school. It was actually fun to see her come to an understanding of the holiday (which happens to be my favorite) and get really excited about trick or treating.
It's nice that you two are learning each others traditions.
1 person likes this
@multisubj (451)
• India
18 Jun 07
Value of the gift better ignored. Even God can be satisfied with patram, pushpam and tooyam (leaves, flowers and water).
@judyt00 (3497)
• Canada
15 Jun 07
In cases of large families like that, you'd probably only buy a trinket for the children any way, even in America, and perhaps a small gift for siblings and a major gift for the parents. When I was a kid, we used to be 25 around the table, and we all got a book, or pencils, or stockings, something small, and of course, a Christmas stocking filled with candy and fruit
