An Irish Christmas

  • There are lots of Mass Sermons around Christmas. The midnight mass is the best. The Mass starts at 11pm on December 24th and ends at 12 am on December 25th. Some Irish traditions such as eating the Christmas cake and opening presents is strictly for 25th December. So after Midnight Mass most people raid those things.
  • St. Nicholas is who young children believe is Santa Clause, who brings them presents. The tradition of Santa is mostly for 2-8 year olds as after that children start to get curious and suspicious.
  • Christmas is meant to be dark as it’s close to the Winter Solstice. In Ireland however it’s lit up with lights and every Christmas tree is decorated with baubles on every branch and tinsel wrapped around each one.
  • Christmas dinner is a specialty in Ireland. It’s like a Sunday dinner x 1,000,000. The most popular meal is: Potatoes, peas, carrots, cabbage, roast potatoes, croquets and Yorkshire Puddings. There is also meat such as: ham, chicken, turkey, 3-bird-roast. A 3-bird-roast consists of turkey, duck and goose.
  • On Christmas Day children receive presents from ‘Santa’. They play with these gifts 24/7 for the next few weeks.
  • The weather is cold and rainy. Sometimes it snows. In winter ’09 it snowed pretty heavily. That year traffic completely stopped and snow was 3 feet in some counties.
  • School gets closed for two weeks during winter. This year it’s closing on 20th of December and reopens on 6th of January 2014. But before that we have a Christmas Fair and school plays.                          BY AARON METCALFE