Holidays Around the World

Holidays Around the World

Discovering new holidays around the world can bring extra joy to any season. Whether it’s winter holidays like New Year’s Eve and Chinese New Year, holidays for kids like Hina Matsuri and St. Lucia’s Day, or seasonal holidays like Holi and Día de los Muertos, these celebrations open a window to the many cultures of the big, bright world.
While putting together our award-winning subscription boxes for kids and other globally themed toys and games, we’ve researched some of the most fun and fascinating holidays around the world.
Winter Holidays Around the World
Winter weather can be cold and dreary, but that’s all the more reason to chase away the blues with a good time! People celebrate many winter holidays around the world, with themes from ringing in the new year to finding love to lighting up cold, dark nights.
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year (also called Lunar New Year and celebrated in many countries outside China), starts on thesecond new moon after the winter solstice. The exact date varies from year to year, but it always falls during the winter. In China, the holiday lasts for weeks!
Celebrations for Chinese New Year take all kinds of forms, from enormous public fireworks displays and exciting lion dances to special family dinners at home and giving children money in red envelopes for good luck. This vibrant, thriving holiday with ancient roots brings warmth and cheer to winter every year!
Dragobete
Valentine’s Day not for you? You might be interested to hear about Dragobete, a Romanian celebration of love on February 24. Dragobete was the Romanian god of love, whose mother, Baba Dochia, separated him from his wife after he married without her blessing. Every year, people in Romania celebrate the couple’s triumphant reunion by gathering snowdrops (an early-blooming wildflower), holding bonfires, and looking for love!
Pingxi Lantern Festival
Taiwan has a striking way of celebrating Lunar New Year: the Pingxi Lantern Festival. In the past, people in Taiwan used flying lanterns to signal safety after bandit attacks. That hopeful spirit powers a celebration in which thousands of people write wishes onto special flying lanterns in the village of Pingxi.
When the lanterns are lit, they float into the sky. Special regulations and Pingxi’s location between the mountains and the sea help keep the lanterns contained safely, creating one of winter’s most remarkable sights.
Holidays Around the World for Kids
Most holidays around the world are plenty of fun for kids. Presents, festivals, theatrical dances, and costumes—what’s not to love? But some global holidays focus especially on kids, including:
Hina Matsuri
Japan’s 1,000-year-old Hina Matsuri festival celebrates girls through family gatherings and the display of special dolls bought just for the occasion. The most elaborate (and traditional) doll sets involve a seven-tiered display, with emperor and empress dolls on top and their musicians, ministers, and servants on the bottom.
Special family meals help mark the day. Sticky rice cakes wrapped in pickled cherry blossom, layered rice cakes, and more—yum! Even the dolls join in the fun, with the cakes placed alongside them on their display.
St. Lucia’s Day
in Sweden shines a special light on the oldest girl in each family—literally! During the celebration, which occurs on December 13 as part of the Christmas season, she must dress in white and wear an illuminated crown to represent Lucia, an early Christian saint. Sometimes she’ll serve special foods to family members. Boys get to join the fun, too, by wearing white and singing songs during parades.
Kwanzaa
, a weeklong celebration of community and African culture, began with African Americans in the United States. Known for its seven principles of unity (umoja), collective work and responsibility (ujima), cooperative economics (ujamaa), self-determination (kujichagulia), purpose (nia), creativity (kuumba), and faith (imani), the holiday also places special significance on children.
Because children are the future of the community, they’re honored during Kwanzaa with gifts and encouraged to take important roles in celebrations. They even helped give the holiday its name—Kwanzaa’s founders added an extra a to the Kiswahili word kwanza because seven children were involved in the celebration’s early years!
Christmas
When you’re talking about December holidays, you can’t forget Christmas. Enormously popular in many places, Christmas involves a host of different traditions in the many countries where it’s celebrated. For example:
In Mexico, the celebration of Las Posadas from December 16 to December 24 honors Mary and Joseph’s search for an inn. Every night, families go to a different home and ask for shelter. Once they’re let in, they celebrate together!
In India, people attend special midnight masses and make kheer, a sweet pudding, for neighbors and family.
Norwegians celebrate with their own kind of rice pudding, called riskrem, on Christmas Eve.
Brazilian children leave a sock near the window for Bom Velhinho (a Brazilian name for Santa Claus). If he finds it, they get a present!
In Ireland, some people take a cold swim in the ocean on Christmas morning!
To try out some new Christmas traditions yourself, check out our free DIY paper straw ornament and DIY Dutch advent calendar!