Christmas in Latvia

Hello Everyone,

We’ve spent our first Christmas season in Latvia. It is interesting to see how different cultures celebrate the holidays. Here there are similar decorations: trees with ornaments and lights, wreaths, etc. However, many people decorate trees outside so they also still prominently sell wax candles and candle holders with which to light your trees. Most trees are much smaller because so many people live in apartments. Fresh trees are available generally the week before Christmas as many have a tradition of decorating their trees on Christmas Eve.

Here are some other Latvian traditions:

- Family gatherings are usually held on the day of Christmas Eve and gifts are
opened then.

- Christmas music is playing in all of the malls. We often heard English tracks,
including Bing Crosby’s rendition of White Christmas. We recognize many tunes even when the lyrics are Latvian. They also openly hand out liquor samples in grocery stores as you are shopping.

- Santa looks the same, but when he shows up at a party here in “the land that
sings” (as Latvia is called), each child must sing a song to receive a gift from
Santa. Nate sang Jingle Bells (wonderfully of course) in English when Santa was at his preschool party.

- Gingerbread houses and cookies in all shapes are the featured baked goods.

- You cannot find boxes of Christmas cards. Christmas cards or postcards are sold individually – a testament to the cultural norm of tight and small circles of friends.

- There are very few nativity sets or scenes or even Christmas books about the first Christmas.

At the Reed house on Christmas Day, we were able to share our meal with some colleagues from Russia who came to Riga while trying to resolve some visa issues. Although we didn’t know them prior to this, we were so glad they had Christmas with us instead of spending the whole day in a hotel room.

We had a beautiful white Christmas and Nate has thoroughly enjoyed his first experiences with sledding.

It’s been a different season for us, a less frenetic one because we haven’t had all of the Christmas production rehearsals and performances, parties, socials, and other festivities that usually filled our December calendar. However, the salient theme of Christmas remains the same regardless of our location: celebrating the birth of a Savior, Christ Jesus our Lord!