Taiwan
The biggest Christmas-themed event.
What is a Christmasland in New Taipei City?
Held in Banqiao, Christmasland sees a huge swath of New Taipei being turned into a true Winter Wonderland. Highlights include Taiwan’s tallest Christmas tree, a huge Christmas market, a Christmas fair with rides for all the family, carol singers galore, and of course some of the best Christmas decorations in the whole country.
The shape of this lantern is associated with the three wise men and stands for hope for humanity..
What is a star or Christmas Star?
Across India, as Christmas approaches, Christian families craft handmade star-shaped lanterns. These beautiful pieces represent shining God's light to the world, something even more special to Indian Christians, who make up less than 3% of the population. Having said this, the population of India is over 1 Billion, so there are over 25 million Christians in India!
Celebrators like to put this in their front window.
What is a Christmas Tree?
Decorated trees date back to Germany in the Middle Ages, with German and other European settlers popularizing Christmas trees in America by the early 19th century. A New York woodsman named Mark Carr is credited with opening the first U.S. Christmas tree lot in 1851. A 2019 survey by the American Christmas Tree Association, predicted that 77 percent of U.S. households displayed a Christmas tree in their home. Among the trees on display, an estimated 81 percent were artificial and 19 percent were real.
In "A Christmas Carol", this was the first ghost to appear to Scrooge.
What is the Ghost of Christmas Past?
While Christmas is not a religious holiday or celebration as there aren't many Christians in Japan, these two customs came to Japan from the USA.
What is Sending and Receiving Christmas Cards and Presents?
Holiday celebrated on December 21st this year.
What is the Dongzhi Festival?
This very important festival marks Winter Solstice, and is inspired by the yin and yang philosophy of balance and harmony – the longer days following the solstice mean an increase in positive energy flowing in.
While Finland and Canada like to say Santa Claus lives here, he actually originates from this country.
Christians do this at midnight on Christmas Eve.
What is go to Christmas Mass at church?
Midnight mass is a tradition that sees Christians gather for a service on Christmas Eve. The service generally starts just before midnight, depending on whether the church is Roman Catholic of Protestant.
While the Bible does not specify Jesus' date of birth, it is thought that December 25 was chosen as it is exactly nine months after the Christians believe Jesus was immaculately conceived, on March 25. This tradition is believed to have started to honor Jesus' birth.
It is believed the tradition started in the Western World from about 430AD under Pope Sixtus III in the Basilica of St Mary Major and became widely popular by the twelfth century.
This is the most popular mean on Christmas Day.
What is Fried Chicken?
It is the busiest time of year for restaurants such as KFC and people can place orders at their local fast food restaurant in advance! There was an advertising campaign by KFC in the 1974 called 'Kentucky for Christmas!' (Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!) which was very successful and made KFC popular for Christmas!
Today, around 3.6 million Japanese people tuck into a feast of the Colonel's fried chicken specialties every Christmas.
Holiday also celebrated on Christmas Day, but is no longer a National Holiday.
What is Constitution Day?
The day was designated as a national holiday in 1963 until 2001. Adopted in 1946, the ROC Constitution was comprises 175 articles in 14 chapters. In essence the Constitution embodies the ideal of "sovereignty of the people," guarantees human rights and freedoms, provides for a central government with five branches and a local self-government system, ensures a balanced division of powers between the central and local governments, and stipulates fundamental national policies.
This is America's Christmas Flower.
What are Poinsettias?
America’s Christmas flower, these plants native to Central America were brought to the United States (and given their name) by the country’s first U.S. ambassador to Mexico, botanist Joel Roberts Poinsett, in the 1820s. It was a California horticulturist named Paul Ecke who brought the traditionally red and green plants to the masses 100 years later. He donated the plants to TV shows, and, according to the Los Angeles Times, the poinsettia became the best-selling potted plant in the nation by 1986.
This relative new Christmas tradition was started in 2005 and drives parent's crazy with its daily commitment.
What is Elf on the Shelf?
Love it or loathe it, since 2005, moms and dads have either joyously or begrudgingly been hiding a toy elf each night from Thanksgiving to Christmas. More than 13 million elves have been “adopted” since 2005 when Carol Aebersold and her daughter, Chanda Bell, published the book Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition that comes with the toy. Social media has even inspired some parents to set up elaborate scenarios for their elves—as in: He TP’d the tree! She filled the sink with marshmallows!
This movie introduced us to this famous quote by this character, "I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love." (name the movie and the character)
This quote was made by Linus Van Pelt in "A Charlie Brown Christmas".
This movie is a 1965 animated television special. It is the first TV special based on the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz and made its debut on CBS on December 9, 1965.
When Charlie Brown complains about the overwhelming materialism that he sees amongst everyone during the Christmas season, Lucy suggests that he become director of the school Christmas pageant. Charlie Brown accepts, but it proves to be a frustrating struggle. When an attempt to restore the proper spirit with a forlorn little fir Christmas tree fails, he needs Linus' help to learn what the real meaning of Christmas is.
This popular emoji is also a traditional Christmas dessert.
What is Christmas Cake?
The traditional Japanese Christmas food is Christmas cake, but it's not a rich fruit cake, but is usually a sponge cake decorated with strawberries and whipped cream. The 'shortcake' emoji [🍰] is Japanese Christmas cake!
Started off as a local church activity, this village celebrates Christmas with outdoor decorations of the San-Ai church that has gradually developed into an annual celebration.
What is the Christmas Alley of the Ji-Qing village?
Voted as one of the 10 most romantic Christmas attractions in Taiwan, the Ji-Qing Christmas Alley is now a serene yet festive catwalk of glimmering lights and ornaments in a quiet residential area. What is very unique about the Ji-Qing Christmas Alley is that it is an activity initiated by the neighborhood without any commercial purposes. Each family chooses their own decoration theme of the year and decorates the outside of their house accordingly. Be it the yellow bathing duck, a sparkling railway or shiny Chinese lanterns (which will probably stay there until late February when the Chinese Lantern festival is over, lol), these decorations are not mere beautiful decorations but are also the embodiment of the harmony the villagers share.
This day starts the twelve days of Christmas.
What is Christmas Day, December 25th?
The 12 Days have been celebrated in Europe since before the middle-ages and were a time of celebration. Each day traditionally celebrates a feast day:
• Day 1 (25th December): Christmas Day - celebrating the Birth of Jesus
• Day 2 (26th December also known as Boxing Day): St Stephen’s Day.
• Day 3 (27th December): St John the Apostle
• Day 4 (28th December): The Feast of the Holy Innocents
• Day 5 (29th December): St. Thomas Becket.
• Day 6 (30th December): St. Egwin of Worcester.
• Day 7 (31st December): New Year's Eve Pope Sylvester I
• Day 8 (1st January): Mary, the Mother of Jesus
• Day 9 (2nd January): St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen
• Day 10 (3rd January): Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.
• Day 11 (4th January): St. Elizabeth Ann Seton,
• Day 12 (5th January also known as Epiphany Eve): St. John Neumann
You may find one of these hidden in a Christmas tree.
Who is a Christmas Pickle?
If there’s a pickle among your snowman, angel and reindeer ornaments, you’re likely taking part in the American tradition of hiding the green ornament on the tree, so that the first child to find it wins a gift, or gets to open the first present Christmas morning. The practice’s origins are a bit murky (or should that be briny?), but, it’s likely it grew from a Woolworths marketing gimmick from the late 1800s, when the retailer received imported German ornaments shaped like a pickle and needed a sales pitch.
Who is George Bailey's Guardian Angel.
Who is Clarence?
The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his personal dreams, in order to help others in his community, and whose suicide attempt on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George how he has touched the lives of others and how different life would be for his wife Mary and his community of Bedford Falls if he had not been born.
This particular piece of music is popular for Christmas.
What is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and its final act the "Ode to Joy"?
One piece of music is especially famous around Christmas and the end of the year in Japan - Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and its final act the "Ode to Joy". The music is so famous it's simply known as 'daiku' (which means 'number nine'). Choirs all over the country sing it in German. One choir in Osaka, has 10,000 people in it and is known as the 'Number Nine Chorus'! It's thought it was first sung in Japan at Christmas by German prisoners of War in World War One and over the years it became more and more popular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQNV9u1hzI (stop at 2:04m)
According to Wikipedia, this is the percentage of people that are Christians in Taiwan.
What is 3.9%? (within 2% will be accepted)
Taiwan has a Christian minority, making up about 3.9% of its population. Roughly half of Taiwan's Christians are Catholic, and half Protestant. Due to the small number of practitioners, Christianity has not influenced the island nation's Han Chinese culture in a significant way.
This is how much Clark Griswold from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) would pay in electricity to decorate his house for Christmas and pay today’s national average of 12 cents per kWh.
What is $1600?
Christmas Tree
The average strand of 100 mini lights that you can find at your typical hardware or grocery store uses about 45 watts per strand and at about 10 strands of lights, that's 1,000 lights at 45 watts per strand is 450 watts to keep your Christmas tree lit. This is about the same number of watts used to power your 55 inch flat screen television.
450 watts at 7 hours a day for 45 days at $0.12 per kWh= $17.01
Outdoor String Lights
Those big festive pre-lamped bulbs you add to your roof or windows come with a high operational price tag. The average strand of 100 of these lights uses 500 watts of energy. To cover a traditional two story home, you will need around 20 strands of these lights, which comes to a whopping 10,000 watts of energy.
That is about as much energy as you need to heat a 1,500 square foot home with an electric furnace.
10,000 watts at 7 hours a night for 45 days at $0.12 per kWh= $378.00
Outdoor Tree Lights
The average 20 foot outdoor tree requires around 20,000 lights. The average C9 multicolored outdoor Christmas lights consume around 175 watts per strand of 25 lights. If you have 80 strands of these to cover your trees around your yard, that is about 14,000 watts of energy per tree.
How much energy is that? It is about the same as running your oven, dryer, dishwasher, microwave, coffee maker, toaster and washer all at once, meaning those trees are taking up a lot of your electricity bill.
14,000 watts per tree x 2 trees at 7 hours a night for 45 days at $0.12 per kWh= $529.20
Christmas Decorations/Accessories Requiring Electricity
We’re talking about light up decorations that come in all different types of creature shapes from reindeers to animals, Santas, snowmen and anything in between. The average one of these decorations uses about 120 watts. So if you have a pair of light up holiday animals you are only looking at about 140 watts of energy.
This is about the same as using your computer monitor.
240 watts at 7 hours a day for 45 days at $0.12 per kWh= $9.07
Icicle Lights
The average strand of those fun icicle lights has 95 lights on it and uses about 6,056 watts of energy. If you want to line your gutters with three strands of these lights, you are looking at around 18,168 watts of energy. This is about the same as washing 50 loads of laundry.
18,168 watts at 7 hours a night for 45 days at $0.12 per kWh= $686.75
What is the Japanese New Year?
New Year (正月, shōgatsu) is the most important holiday in Japan. Most businesses shut down from January 1 to January 3, and families typically gather to spend the days together.
Years are traditionally viewed as completely separate, with each new year providing a fresh start. Consequently, all duties are supposed to be completed by the end of the year, while bonenkai parties ("year forgetting parties") are held with the purpose of leaving the old year's worries and troubles behind.
Homes and entrance gates are decorated with ornaments made of pine, bamboo and plum trees, and clothes and houses are cleaned.
On New Year's eve, toshikoshi soba (buckwheat noodles), symbolizing longevity, are served. A more recent custom is watching the music show "kohaku uta gassen", a highly popular television program featuring many of Japan's most famous J-pop and enka singers in spectacular performances.
January 1 is a very auspicious day, best started by viewing the new year's first sunrise (hatsu-hinode), and traditionally believed to be representative for the whole year that has just commenced. Therefore, the day is supposed be full of joy and free of stress and anger, while everything should be clean and no work should be done.
It is a tradition to visit a shrine or temple during shogatsu (hatsumode). The most popular temples and shrines, such as Tokyo's Meiji Shrine, attract several million people during the three days. Most impressive are such visits at the actual turn of the year, when large temple bells are rung at midnight.
A very popular custom is the sending of New Year's cards, which are specially marked to be delivered on January 1. It is not uncommon for one person to send out several dozens of cards to friends, relatives and co-workers.