UK here, I expect we’re similar to the US except with mince pies and mulled wine, which I understand aren’t really a thing over there. We won’t out our decorations up until December, maybe a week in or so. Shops put them up around mid November once bonfire night is over.
I used to live in Morocco. There wouldn’t be much of it except in the richer areas where they expected Westerners. You might see some stuff up in shops. It was just a normal day to them but it was weird for my first one as we spent Christmas Day in the outdoor swimming pool. One thing I remember that was strange was that they didn’t really understand the timing of it. To me, Christmas Day is like the last day of Christmas, and the rest of Christmas is the build up to it. They saw Christmas Day as the first day of Christmas and I remember a shopping centre advertising all the Christmas events they had starting on Christmas Day, like they thought westerners would be out and about. I guessed it was because they compared it to Aid (Eid in other Arabic countries), when they slaughter a sheep on the first day then spend the rest of the holiday eating it. They also sort of treated a Christmas tree as a New Years tree, and you would see trees and decorations up in March and April still.
If we want to get a little nitpicky, the Moroccans kind of have it right
Sure there’s advent leading up to Christmas
But “christmastide” really begins on Christmas day and continues on into January (January 5th for Epiphany, or slightly longer if your Catholic because they technically count the feast of the baptism of the lord as part of christmastime.) When you talk about the “twelve days of Christmas” the first day is Christmas.
The lyrics to “Good King Wenceslas” (otherwise known as “that Christmas carol whose tune you recognize, but have no idea what the lyrics are if you even know that it has lyrics”) starts with the titular king looking out his window “on the feast of Stephen” which is the day after Christmas.
Different branches of Christianity, countries, cultures, etc. of course do things in all kinds of different ways, and I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about Moroccan Christians, nor much about Islamic attitudes towards Christmas there (though since they were doing Christmas events, I think it’s fair to assume that these weren’t exactly hard-liners who believe that no Muslim should ever have anything to do with Christmas) so I can’t really say why they do their Christmas stuff the way they do there, but it could be they just never got the memo that how we celebrate Christmas has changed a bit over the last few centuries.
US does mulled wine, but it’s more of a general winter thing. More common up north in areas with more northern european influence, I think. Mince pies aren’t really a thing, though, which is a shame.
UK here, I expect we’re similar to the US except with mince pies and mulled wine, which I understand aren’t really a thing over there. We won’t out our decorations up until December, maybe a week in or so. Shops put them up around mid November once bonfire night is over.
I used to live in Morocco. There wouldn’t be much of it except in the richer areas where they expected Westerners. You might see some stuff up in shops. It was just a normal day to them but it was weird for my first one as we spent Christmas Day in the outdoor swimming pool. One thing I remember that was strange was that they didn’t really understand the timing of it. To me, Christmas Day is like the last day of Christmas, and the rest of Christmas is the build up to it. They saw Christmas Day as the first day of Christmas and I remember a shopping centre advertising all the Christmas events they had starting on Christmas Day, like they thought westerners would be out and about. I guessed it was because they compared it to Aid (Eid in other Arabic countries), when they slaughter a sheep on the first day then spend the rest of the holiday eating it. They also sort of treated a Christmas tree as a New Years tree, and you would see trees and decorations up in March and April still.
If we want to get a little nitpicky, the Moroccans kind of have it right
Sure there’s advent leading up to Christmas
But “christmastide” really begins on Christmas day and continues on into January (January 5th for Epiphany, or slightly longer if your Catholic because they technically count the feast of the baptism of the lord as part of christmastime.) When you talk about the “twelve days of Christmas” the first day is Christmas.
The lyrics to “Good King Wenceslas” (otherwise known as “that Christmas carol whose tune you recognize, but have no idea what the lyrics are if you even know that it has lyrics”) starts with the titular king looking out his window “on the feast of Stephen” which is the day after Christmas.
Different branches of Christianity, countries, cultures, etc. of course do things in all kinds of different ways, and I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about Moroccan Christians, nor much about Islamic attitudes towards Christmas there (though since they were doing Christmas events, I think it’s fair to assume that these weren’t exactly hard-liners who believe that no Muslim should ever have anything to do with Christmas) so I can’t really say why they do their Christmas stuff the way they do there, but it could be they just never got the memo that how we celebrate Christmas has changed a bit over the last few centuries.
Mulled cider is way more common where I live than wine, but we’re known for apples here so that’s probably why.
US does mulled wine, but it’s more of a general winter thing. More common up north in areas with more northern european influence, I think. Mince pies aren’t really a thing, though, which is a shame.