A beach party might not sound like the traditional American Christmas, but it would be in Australia.
Similarly, Mid-Missouri homes likely don't put out shoes on Christmas Eve expecting Jesus to fill them with goodies. However, they do in France.
Christmas Around the World will be hosted in Jefferson City by Community Christian Church, 409 Ellis Blvd., from 3-5 p.m. Dec. 4 to provide such insight to compare and contrast the global celebrations of Christ's birth.
Organizer Glen Gessley said guests may also be surprised to learn the national origins of some of their own family traditions.
"We were looking for something new and different for Advent, besides carols and looking at windows," Gessley said.
Families and small groups within the local Disciples of Christ congregation have invested time and effort researching the eight featured localities - Mexico, Australia, Washington, D.C., Norway, Germany, Haiti, France and Russia.
For many, there was a personal connection such as their own family members living in these places.
The holiday pageantry from each place will be displayed in classrooms around the circular church building.
Guests will first enter the "airport terminal" where they will pick up their "passports," Gessley said. Children are invited to participate in a quiz following their world tour.
"We hope people will enjoy this enough that it might become an annual thing," Gessley said.
Rooms will be filled with sounds, smells, tastes, videos loops, novelties and more from each of the cultures. And the Mexico room will break a pinta around 4 p.m.
The church of about 70 attendees on any given Sunday has made international missions a priority, such as providing humanitarian services following natural disasters in Haiti and the Bahamas. Gessley recently returned from a mission delivering wheelchairs to those in need in Guatemala.
"It helps us to build understanding," he said. "It's an opportunity for us to learn more about the world and better understand the way people approach their lives differently than ours."
Area churches will begin their various celebrations of this sacred holiday through Dec. 25. Many of those include traditions of reaching out to the local community or reconnecting with friends and family.
Christmas Around the World offers a different take, looking across the globe.
For example, Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world, yet they find ways to celebrate Christmas, Gessley said.
"That could be enlightening to us - the more simple ways to celebrate and connect to the story of Christ's birth," he said. "We all celebrate Christmas as a time to realize God came to Earth to help us learn to be better people and learn to live together."
Link: opencirclejc.com