5 crazy Christmas traditions from around the world
Posted by
Faye
Home > News > 5 crazy Christmas traditions from around the world
No-one celebrates Christmas the same, whether you live next door to someone or on the opposite side of the world. We all have our unique traditions but some of them are arguably weirder than others. Here are five of the strangest Christmas traditions from around the globe.
Krampus and Perchta
Father Christmas and his trusty elves are a classic yuletide image that brings warmth to the hearts of millions. However, if you’re from the Alpine countries, the thought of meeting one of Santa’s little helpers is a scary one. In this region St Nick is accompanied on his rounds by two demonic figures known as Krampus and Perchta. If Children are bad, legend has it that Krampus would put them in a sack and drag them to hell. Yet, believe it or not, this is the best of the two options as when Perchta gets involved, she rips open the abdomen of naughty whippersnappers, pulls out their guts and fills them with straw.
Skating in Caracas
Roller blading and Christmas are two things you probably don’t think have much in common but in Caracas, Venezuela, you can’t have one without the other. Early on a Xmas morn, people take to the streets on their roller blades to skate to mass.
This isn’t the only slightly odd tradition going on in Caracas: children will often tie a rope to their toe before they go to sleep, hang it out of the window and when people skate by in the morning, they will tug on the rope to wake the children up.
Christmas meets Mother’s Day
In the former Yugoslavian republics, Christmas can be slightly more stressful for mothers than normal. In the two weeks before the big day, they essentially live in fear of their children sneaking up on them, tying their feet to a chair and demanding presents by singing “Mother’s Day, Mother’s Day, what will you pay to get away?”. If she wants to be free, she has to give them presents. Not to leave out Dad, the following week the kids do the same to him to get even more presents.
Throwing shoes
If you’re single in the Czech Republic, Christmas Eve is when you can find out what your love life has in store for the next 12 months. A woman would simply stand at her front door, turn around and simply throw a shoe over her shoulder. If the toe points towards the door then it’s time to celebrate as she’ll be married within the year. However, if it’s pointing away from the door it’s another year in singledom.
Tio de Nadal
December 8th in Catalonia marks the day when children bring a log into the house, start to feed it and cover it up to keep away the cold. Why? Because on Christmas Eve if you beat it hard enough it will ‘poop’ out presents. Aah, festive.
Faye has been working in our administration department for nearly 10 years, but has over 13 years’ experience working in the travel industry. Faye is in charge of making sure that all our bookings run smoothly, with her eagle eye and her passion for customer service, we are confident our clients documents are all clear and correct.
Our experienced personal travel consultants will ensure you find the most suitable holiday, whilst taking care of every last detail. Everything from start to finish will be effortless.
100% Tailor Made
We can use any hotel, in any destination, so we will craft an itinerary to suit your exact needs. Also, as we can provide any itinerary, the only holiday we'll offer, is the one that's right for you.
Fully Protected
Our ATOL bonding provides you with the financial protection you need and as a member of the Travel Trust Association, you'll have 100% financial protection. Covering you for any eventuality.
Competitive Pricing
As a tour operator & travel agent, we'll search the market to ensure that we find you the best price. Also as an online business, we can ensure our prices are as competitive as possible.
Excellent
4.94 Average 2832 Reviews
Mark
I have just booked three destination Greek holiday through E shores( Rachael) and can’t fault their approach and helpfulness . I amended my plans half way through but by the end we had successfully booked the three hotels I requested and organised ferry transfers . My input was minimal and all the work was carried out by Rachael Very satisfied with everything from start to finish Mark
Posted 2 days ago
Rashid
Excellent service from Emily, she handled my enquiry from start to finish. Once i had made payment, she still kept in touch which shows great customer service.
Posted 2 days ago
Judith
I have used this form a couple of times and they are excellent. Helpful staff and cost effective prices. Recommended
Posted 4 days ago
Jeanette
Fantastic service once again from Dave Felton and the team at e-shores. All flights, transfers and hotels booked. Looking forward to Bali and Lombok Excellent knowledge, advice and customer care from the team, I would definitely recommend booking any holiday with e-shores✈️😎🌴
Posted 6 days ago
Sandra
Fantastic service, another trip organised through eShores. Nothing was too much trouble.
Posted 6 days ago
Lance
as always Eshores come up trumps, fantastic customer service with fantastic prices. Matthew our travel guru always sorts our trips,nothing is too much trouble .I have used E-Shores for 6 of our long haul trips ,manages to sort all connections,hotels and car hire to a sensible budget and always communicates . 5 star plus,give them a try you will not be dissapointed.
Posted 6 days ago
NicholasDavid
Just booked our 3rd holiday with e-shores, yet again a full professional service and insight to the destinations we wanted to visit- no pressurised selling, and if we kept wanting our itinerary changed - Nick Chadwick didn’t mind at all. Easy to deal nothing to much trouble, also arrange everything to the last detail, no way would we contemplate a holiday to Chile, Argentina and Dominion Republic without eShores - thank u
Posted 1 week ago
Wendy
We have recently been on an amazing 3 week holiday to Kuala Lumpur, Borneo and Singapore arranged by Hannah at eshores. Everything went smoothly and we had the perfect holiday. We loved our multi centre trip so much we have booked with Hannah to go to South America. Again the service and support is great and so easy to make tweaks to our itinerary. Looking forward to what I'm sure will be another great holiday. I would definitely recommend eshores.
Posted 1 week ago
Deborah
We just booked our first trip with Nick from eshores and will be heading to Vietnam next April. Nick was very patient and professional. He listened to what we wanted and made changes to package where requested. Nick was very knowledgeable and made the process very easy.
Posted 1 week ago
SusanMary
During the booking process, Dave has been brilliant, always very quick to respond and answered all of my very many questions. Our travel is not till next year but, if our tour goes as well as our experience to date, it will be fantastic.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.