Celebrating Love Around The World

 Celebrating Love Around The World

by Sharon Bryant

It's almost Valentine's Day. Have you planned to do something special? There are so many ways to celebrate. You might be celebrating the love you and your partner share, or the love you feel for someone you care about. 

Love Around The World

Love is celebrated in different ways around the world. I thought it might be fun to explore this a little.

Japanese women traditionally give men chocolates on Valentine's Day. They used to give inexpensive chocolates, giri choco, to co-workers though this is less common these days. Honmei choco (special chocolate which is often homemade) is reserved for romantic partners. Japanese men generally don't give women Valentine's Day gifts. They reciprocate one month later on White Day by giving gifts that are two to three times the value of what they have received.

In Germany, it's traditional to give Valentines gifts of chocolates, flowers, or cartoons or keepsakes of pigs. Pigs symbolise good luck in Germany and are just as much a part of Valentine's Day as cupids in some other parts of the world.

Saint Valentine is a patron saint of spring in Slovenia. Valentine's Day is celebrated as the time when life begins to stir again. One traditional Slovenia idea is that birds "propose" on Valentine's Day. Traditionally people walk barefoot through the icy fields to see and appreciate the changes that springtime brings.

There are so many other beautiful loving traditions: Welsh love spoons, mountainous wedding ceremonies in Thailand, a four day festival in Verona with a letter writing contest to Juliet, and mass wedding ceremonies in public spaces in Manila.

I hope you thoroughly enjoy February 14 either thinking of or being with someone you love.

How do you plan to spend Valentine's Day?

I love to love spending time with my husband, family and friends.

I love to laugh with friends and family.

I love to learn more about love around the world.

Christmas Traditions

By Jayne Kingsley

One only had to walk into their local grocery store during the month of October to know that Christmas was fast approaching. Halloween merchandise made a gallant effort to hide the Christmas paraphernalia (for a while) but we all knew it was there.

I’m one of those people who secretly rejoiced the moment I spotted the first glint of tinsel hanging from the shelves. My last writing jaunt to my local café had an additional spark with Christmas carols playing not so faintly in the background.

           

I am a Christmas tragic, in all my sparkly red and green glory, and I’m not afraid to say so.

Image courtesy of Giphy.com

My writing desk sports a mini Christmas tree (because whilst it amuses my husband ever so much to listen to me sing carols and decorate our kids fairy garden with tinsel, we have a rule that we don’t put the actual tree up until Dec 1). I have a sparkly reindeer that’s made its way to our dining room table and did I mention my website has snowflakes falling oh-so-delicately on it?

Since having kids we’ve developed a few family Christmas traditions. Our kids are young and still in that magical stage where Santa’s name is whispered reverently, and a single spotting can cause mass hysteria, so I thought I’d share a few of our Chrissy traditions with you on the blog today – to further along my Christmas cheer!

1.     We put the tree up on December 1. It doesn’t matter what day that falls on – we cook something super tasty for dinner, pop open a bottle of champagne (apple juice for the kids), play carols and we decorate the tree as a family. We have little wooden stars with each of our names carved in them and a whole range of handmade decorations by the kids. It’s a special evening that I look forward to every year.

2.     Christmas craft with my kids. Last year we built a Christmas village and as a special gift to my Instagram and FB followers I did a Christmas count down of watercolour sketches in the lead up to Christmas day. This year we’re colouring in Christmas cards to send to our loved ones and adding to our Christmas Village.

3.     We watch EVERY SINGLE Christmas movie available! Octonauts and Paw patrol Christmas rescues, Barbie helping Santa, every Hallmark movie I can get my grubby little hands on. And of course Love Actually on Christmas Eve. The cheesier and happier the movie – the better! So long as there's some Christmas element, it's on our tv. 

4.     Gingerbread house making! This is always fun (albeit a little messy and sickening to the stomach). This year we attempted a small replica of Elsa’s castle – which wasn’t structurally as sound as it needed to be, but boy did it taste great!

5.     Planning session with Mr Kingsley. This is a bit of a favourite for me. With young kids there isn’t always a lot of time or energy left at the end of the day to spend quality time together, but we always make sure we set one night aside where we just talk about the next year. We discuss holidays, life goals, and reconnect so we are on the same page for the year to come.

Image courtesy of Giphy.com

How about you? What are your family Christmas Traditions? Are they steeped in history or newly formed? Please let me know in the comments.

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I love to love... Christmas!

I love to laugh... with my kids whilst making gingerbread houses

I love to learn... new recipes that involve pumpkin and spice and all things nice

Easter Egg Traditions in Russia

with guest blogger, Suzi Love

Easter was introduced at the end of the 10th Century in Russia and became a time of family

celebrations. Starting as long ago as the Pagan times there was a tradition to paint eggs red, symbolising the sun that ancient people worshipped and to celebrate the awakening of nature after winter. Russians gathered with their family and close friends and such a celebration lasted seven days, the whole Bright Week. Elegant coloured eggs were part of the ritual, but also gifts.



On Easter Sunday, there was a custom of kissing. When people visited at Easter, they took with them painted eggs and greeted each other by saying 'Christ is risen'; the other person replied 'He is risen indeed'. They then kissed each other three times and presented Easter eggs.

In the 18th and 19th centuries at the courts of the Russian Emperors, tsars presented eggs to their retinue. Some were painted with biblical scenes, views of St Petersburg and Moscow, or coats of arms, while special gift souvenir eggs were made of wood, papier-mâché, porcelain, glass, stone and precious metal. If coloured stone was used they were carved and polished, after which they took on a golden or silver-pearl brilliance and appeared to emit light.

Easter eggs were symbolically painted in the colour of the Saviour's blood, which became even more significant at the war fronts where soldiers fought and died and blood was shed. The feast of the Resurrection became associated with the hope of salvation and the redemption of sins through personal courage and self-sacrifice.

Tsar Nicholas's family spent their last Easters at the front and in military hospitals, exchanging the traditional triple kiss with soldiers and giving them gifts. Soldiers were given red eggs with the St George Cross, known as "the soldier's cross" because it was awarded to the lower ranks i.e. privates, seamen and non-commissioned officers. Dowager Empress Maria Fiodorovna commissioned her own personal series of eggs with a red cross and rich decoration and in 1916, 2,000 of these eggs were made and she gifted a thousand of them to wounded soldiers.

Nicholas II's diaries make it possible to recreate episodes from the Easter celebrations at the court of the last Russian emperor. In the entries for 1894 we find Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich celebrating one of his happiest Easter weeks, when the heir to the Russian throne came to Coburg with a brilliant retinue to ask for the hand of Princess Alix of Hesse:

"On Holy Saturday, the eve of Easter, we set off the four of us, Aunt Ella [Grand Duchess Yelizaveta Fiodorovna], Alix, Sandro [Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich]and I to buy all sorts of trifles to hide in the eggs. Although the rain did not stop pouring, we had great fun and laughed...
At 5 o'clock a courier arrived with dear letters from home, with an order and wonderful presents for Alix from Papa and Mama and little Easter eggs. They brought us both a lot of joy. " (Via The Heritage Museum, Russia.)

The famous Fabergé jewelry firm began creating Easter eggs with surprises hidden inside. Gold, silver and precious stones were used and these superbly crafted eggs became famous around the world, given as gifts to members of royal families in several countries, or bought by rich collectors because of their unusual and beautiful designs.

Many Fabergé Easter eggs are displayed in museums, libraries, and galleries around the world, including the Heritage Museum in Russia which holds an enormous collection. And if you’d like to own one, Faberge Eggs are occasionally sold at premiere auction houses around the world.


Do you have an Easter tradition you'd like to share? Love to hear from you.


Suzi's book, Easter in Images, is available at:

Amazon.com.au for 99 cents. http://www.amazon.com.au/Easter-Images-Historical-Events-Suzi-ebook/dp/B00JOZTOTA/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1427863288&sr=8-13&keywords=Suzi+Love

Amazon.com for 78 cents. http://www.amazon.com/Easter-Images-Historical-Events-Suzi-ebook/dp/B00JOZTOTA/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8