SOME QUAINT CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 52, 26 December 1907, Page 19

SOME QUAINT CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS

On , Christmas eve in Venezuela there is very little sleep. -This night is called La Woche Buena— the good- - night. There is plenty of festivity ; it is a faimijy ,feast. p Friends -go to see friends ; those "in the city -go to see those in the country, and tho-se in • the country go to see those in the city. "When calls cannot he made cards are- sent, both 'on Christmas and on. New Year's Day. A pretty feature is the representation in /the homes on Christmas Day of the Crib at .Bethlehem. On Christmas eve all the children hang up their stockings, which are filled with presents by the parents, a" custom which was introduced from Germany. They also have Christmas trees and decorate them with fruit, bonbons and lighted candles. In Norway the peasants have a pretty custom of fastening a sheaf of wheat to a long pole on the housetops, for the wild birds to feast on in the early morning ; and in Holland the young men of the town bear a Jarge silver- star throuph the snowy streets, . collecting alms from the bystanders for the helpless or aged sick. Pines or firs "being, unobtainable, in the tropical islands of the Pacific, the inhabitants sometimes Cut down a fruit tree, such, as - the orange or guava, or sometimes actually manufacture^ a tree from wood, covering the bare stiff branches with clinging vines and evergreens.