Several Christmas traditions in America are influenced by the traditions brought on its coast by English and German immigrants. Well-decorated and candle-lit Christmas trees are the gift of German immigrants to United States. Christmas greeting cards, gingerbread houses, and gingerbread cookies, among other, are the traditions that owe its origin in England.
Majority of the festivities and holidays in American Christmas are centered on family gathering, partying, shopping, decorations, extensive traveling and other social events.
United States is a vast country with its wide geographical locations. Business centers and economic zones are spread over all the corners of America. People often work at places far away from families, necessitating long distance travel so that they can enjoy Christmas and holidays with the families.
With thousands of people traveling from one corner to another corner of America to reach their families, it is obvious that Christmas is a very hectic season for rail and air travel.
Shopping and spending are the two most important features of American Christmas. Black Friday, Friday after Thanksgiving Day, marks the beginning of official Christmas season. Saturday just before Christmas is the day that ranks at the top of the selling charts of retail stores, malls, super stores and other business enterprises. Black Friday is considered as the second in the list of top selling events.
Majority of the shopping is focused around buying gifts for family and friends. Christmas day dinner is the time when all the family members are invariably present. Gifts purchased days in advance are usually kept underneath the Christmas tree ultimately to be distributed to the children and the family members just after Christmas dinner when everybody is at home.
Gifts and presents bought for colleagues and work-associates are generally disbursed at Christmas parties, which are held at work premises during the week just prior to Christmas week.
Besides the shopping for gifts and presents, Christmas tree is the primary item in the list of shoppers. Other important items of shopping consist of decorative materials, candles, garlands, headbands, and other adornments.
Christmas celebrations in Canada are almost same as American celebrations. America and Canada share lot of customs, rituals, traditions and ethnicity due to the close geographical borders. German immigrants who brought the traditions of Christmas tree to the shores of America also brought it to Canada. Exceptions in the traditions of Canadian Christmas celebrations are rarely observed, except Eskimo traditions.
Traditions of Eskimo population of Canada are quite different from the general traditions of America and Canada and the root cause is the severe climatic conditions.
Nova Scotia is the place where one can find little unusual practice during Christmas. Groups of masked people start marching around in the streets about two weeks before the Christmas week. The group tries to attract the onlookers by different ways and means such as sounding bells, dancing, and frolic in anticipation of gifts, sweets, candies and presents.
It is said that the tradition of masked groups resembles ‘Jonkonoo’ traditions of the neighboring Caribbean islands. Jonkonoo is a parade or a procession of masked people walking atop stilts. The appearance of the group sometimes creates scare among the children. However, care is taken to calm down the children with toys, candies and other goodies.
People out in the street observing the masked group can endeavor to guess the identities of masked people. Maskers behave very friendly with the children. For children, it is an occasion to know whether they are nice or bad and to receive gifts.