Intercultural Life

Tag: christmas tree

Take Down Christmas Tree

Visitors to Korea may notice Christmas decorations up when it’s nowhere near Christmas. I’ve definitely seen them up all year round. When I ask Hugh about it he says it’s just because people think they look nice. Christmas is a couple holiday in Korea but there are still a lot of Christmas decorations around, so they have adopted that element of Christmas culture, but not the culture of actually taking them down after Christmas! I think for western countries, besides from the belief some might have of them being bad luck if kept up, we take them down because they lose their importance and meaning if kept up all the time. I think in most countries Christmas trees are taken down in January, unless it’s a lazy university student’s share house. We appreciate decorations when we don’t constantly see them and that’s what makes Christmas a special time. Seeing a dusty Christmas tree in a cafe in July is just depressing (seen that many times in Korea).

I understand that Hugh really likes how pretty our tree looks, but I’m still going to take it down.

When do you usually take your Christmas tree down? Or throw out if you have a real one?

Christmas Tree

I’ve been back at my parent’s house these past few days so this post isn’t really about my husband. My parents have a young Korean couple boarding with them at the moment who I’ve been gradually getting to know better. (Even at home I can’t escape Koreans haha).

We got them to help us decorate the Christmas tree, which was exciting for them.

I did laugh pretty hard at this. He really did just put a clump of red balls on the tree. Because it was so funny, I left it that way, but my mum came and did some rearranging later.

Christmas in Korea doesn’t seem to have the same meaning as it does in places like Australia. My husband told me a lot of people do nothing special and it’s common to just go out and do things with friends. He likes the Western style of Christmas because of the focus on family and traditions (and food!). It’s not really a surprise though, as Christmas has been a big holiday in Western countries a lot longer than in Korea. It’s been fun to introduce the Korean couple staying with my parents to Christmas traditions.

Does your family have any particular Christmas traditions?

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