Christmas Calendar

DIRECTIONS: Open staples, remove insert page and pages 24 and 25, then close staples. Using rubber cement or spray glue, mount pages on lightweight cardboard. Trace pattern of stand thirty-one times on lightweight cardboard and cut out. Be sure to make center cut in stands.

Find a spot to display your calendar—on a mantle or table or under a Christmas tree. On December 1 cut out first child and event card marked number 1. Make sure you cut right and left hands on indicated lines of child so event card will fit (see illustration). Also remember to cut line between feet for stand. Insert event card in child’s hands and place child on stand. Continue each day thereafter through December. Enjoy comparing traditions of other countries with your own.

1 Colorful flower wreaths are worn in a parade after church in the Philippines.

2 The evergreen tree is a symbol of everlasting life; it lives year round and doesn’t lose its needles.

3 In Poland straw is put under the tablecloth in memory of the stable, and a chair is left empty for the Christ Child.

4 If a Czechoslovakian maiden places a cherry twig in water today and it blooms before Christmas, she will marry during the year.

5 It’s St. Nicholas’s Day in Holland. Black Peter opens doors and throws in cookies to announce the arrival of St. Nicholas, who brings gifts later.

6 To decorate their houses for Christmas, Finnish people make false ceilings of straw, hang paper stars, and put straw on the floor.

7 La Befana (a fairy queen) comes down the chimney bringing gifts to good children in Italy.

8 If bowls of wheat and water are placed outside the door in Syria, the youngest camel of the wise men will leave a gift.

9 To celebrate Hanukkah, Jewish families use a candle called the shammash to light one candle a night until eight more have been lit.

10 At the end of the Christmas meal Albanians leave some pancake on their plate to show gratitude, then stand and swing the table while they sing.

11 In 1818 Joseph Mohr, an Austrian pastor, wrote the words to “Silent Night” and organist Franz Gruber composed the music.

12 Le Petit Noël (the Christ Child) brings gifts to good boys and girls in France.

13 In Japan Santa Claus is called Santa Kurosu.

14 Today is Mother’s Day in Yugoslavia. If you find a silver coin in a piece of cake, you’ll have good luck.

15 To bring Christmas to the birds in Norway, children tie sheaves of wheat on the end of long poles.

16 A bowl of pudding is left for Jule Nissen (an elf), who brings gifts to children in Denmark.

17 On Christmas Eve the children in Spain stuff their shoes with hay, hoping for a gift.

18 A candle burning in a window lights the way for the Christ Child in Ireland.

19 The first Christmas cards were made and sent in England.

20 In Germany, where Christmas trees originated, parents surprise their children by trimming the tree.

21 Russian children await the arrival of the Snow Princess and Father Frost at their winter celebration.

22 Today is the first day of winter, called the celebration of the sun, and the year’s shortest day.

23 In the United States gifts are exchanged, cards sent, and homes decorated with colored lights to celebrate Christmas.

24 Some Swiss believe that animals can kneel and speak to honor the Christ Child at midnight on Christmas Eve.

25 People all over the world celebrate the birth of the Christ Child today.

26 It’s Boxing Day in England, and most families give gifts to the milkman and postman and others who serve them.

27 Children in Puerto Rico leave a box of hay for camels of the wise men and receive a gift in return.

28 In Sweden Jultomten arrives on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by goats. Children make goat-shaped gingerbread cookies.

29 Mexican children break piñatas full of candy and toys to celebrate Christmas.

30 Twelve meatless dishes, one for each apostle, are prepared for the Ukrainian Svyata Vechera (Holy Supper).

31 The Yule log custom came from the Norsemen, who burned huge oak trees to honor Thor, god of thunder.

Illustrated by Shauna Mooney