{"id":18286,"date":"2020-01-03T17:16:15","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T11:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/?p=18286"},"modified":"2020-01-07T17:15:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T11:45:47","slug":"christmas-eve-celebrations-2019-at-cel-kundapur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/christmas-eve-celebrations-2019-at-cel-kundapur\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Eve Celebrations 2019 at CEL, Kundapur"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Christmas at\n30\u00b0 C: HBP Volunteers celebrate Christmas far away from home. For most\nvolunteers, Christmas is a family holiday, so this year will, for sure, be\ndifferent. Sharing stories about our different Christmas celebrations, it is\napparent that the traditions vary much, not only from nation to nation but also\nfrom family to family. What will Christmas be like in our part of India and in\nthe new context of the \u201cCEL Family\u201d? (CEL is short for Centre of Experimental\nLiving and is the FSL-India\u2019s training centre at Kundapur). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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India has a\nlarge diversity of religions \u2013 Christians making 2.3% of\nthe population, Christmas is one of the festivities that is celebrated\nwidespread, but not by everyone. Just as most Christians don\u2019t celebrate\nRamadan or Deepavali. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start of\nDecember, we see Christmas decorations popping up every here and there in shops,\nand in streets. Colourful lights and large paper stars bring light and spirit\ninto the dark evenings. People put decorated Christmas trees in front of their\nhouses and TV commercials, start playing Christmas-themed music as jingles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some of us\nvisited a street procession of Advent. People dressed in white, carrying lights\nalong the streets of Kundapur, heading towards church, accompanied by drums and\ntrumpets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the day of\nChristmas Eve, 24th<\/sup> of December, all the CEL volunteers and staff\ngathered to try and bring some Christmas magic to the facility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Early in the\nmorning, as the delicious scent of cinnamon and cardamom filled the air, we popped\non Christmas hats, grabbed some scissors and began crafting paper snowflakes\ntogether, while singing festive songs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We decorated one of the trees in the office area with our snowflakes, some Christmas tree ornaments and garlands. Celebrating Swedish traditions, we then formed a circle holding our hands and danced around the tree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Continuing with another Swedish tradition, we ate lovely Christmas rice \u201cPorridge\u201d with homemade oat milk and vegan butter. Before eating it, everyone has to say something that rhymes. And to add a little suspense, three almonds are hidden in the \u201cPorridge\u201d; it\u00b4s said that whoever finds an almond will get married next year! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Other Christmas\ndishes were prepared by the volunteers, to show some specialties from their\nhome countries. We had salame al chocolate<\/em> \u2013 an Italian dessert made\nwith biscuits and dark chocolate \u2013 and French cr\u00eapes<\/em> accompanied by\nchocolate cream, honey and peanut butter; for lunch, wonderful veg pasta thanks\nto another Italian volunteer. And to end the day on an even sweeter note, our\nGerman friends prepared an amazing Christmas hot punch, apple and cinnamon flavoured,\nand chocolate roses made with cereals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The very same\nday, a midnight mass was celebrated in the church of Kundapur for those who wanted\nto join. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This special\nChristmas will remain in our memory and our hearts for many years to come.\nMaybe some of us even picked up a few new traditions to keep up in the future!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christmas at 30\u00b0 C: HBP Volunteers celebrate Christmas far away from home. For most volunteers, Christmas is a family holiday, so this year will, for sure, be different. Sharing stories about our different Christmas celebrations, it is apparent that the traditions vary much, not only from nation to nation but also from family to family. What will Christmas be like in our part of India and in the new context of the \u201cCEL Family\u201d? (CEL is short for Centre of…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":18295,"comment_status":"Closed","ping_status":"Closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[432,450],"tags":[1337,1338,1103,1335,1055,1174,1242,1181,1186,1334],"class_list":["post-18286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-centre-for-experiential-living","category-general","tag-christmasdishes","tag-christmastraditions","tag-fslindia","tag-fsltrainingcentre","tag-guidestarindia","tag-interculturalexchange","tag-solotravel","tag-volunteerabroad","tag-volunteerlife","tag-volunteerwork-christmasinindia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18341,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18286\/revisions\/18341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}