HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
DECEMBER
2012
•
ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES GULLIVER HANCOCK/THE JACKY WINTER GROUP
21
DISPATCHES
DESTINATIONS ADVENTURES FOOD&DRINK
ALBANIAN:
“
GËZUAR
KRISHTLINDJET”
Besides being one of
the world’s cheapest
cities to live in, the
Albanian capital,
Tirana, can also lay
claim to the world’s
largest Christmas
tree made entirely
of pasta. Built by
a local restaurant
in 2006, it stood 52
feet tall, comprised
about 6 million sticks
of spaghe i and
weighed in at 1 ton.
SWEDISH:
“
GOD JUL”
The 42-foot-tall
straw Yule goat
put up annually in
Gävle, Sweden, is
lucky if it makes it to
Christmas Day. “Half
the inhabitants take
pride in the giant
animal,” a Swedish
paper noted a er
the destruction
of last year’s goat,
“
while the other half
take equal pride in
a empting to burn
it down.”
CHUUKESE:
“
NEEKIRISSIMAS
ANNIM”
For 60 years the
U.S. military has
conducted Operation
Christmas Drop,
raining 275-pound
crates of clothes, toys
and food onto 50-odd
Micronesian islands.
To describe how iso-
lated the islands are, a
member of last year’s
drop said, “Can you
imagine a region on
earth that Facebook
hasn’t touched?”
CATALAN:
“
BONNADAL”
Catalan’s twist on
the piñata, the
tió de
Nadal
is a hollowed-
out log a foot or so
in length, with stick
legs, a red beret and
a drawn-on happy
face. As part of the
holiday festivities,
kids hit the log
with sticks until
sweets and nuts fall
from its rear end;
special songs have
been composed to
accompany the act.
WELSH:
“
NADOLIG
LLAWEN”
It’s a fading tradition
in certain parts of
Wales to spend the
day a er Christmas
hunting wrens, then
parading your prizes
through the streets
in “wren houses.”
Some 8 million
breeding pairs of
wrens live in the
U.K.; Welsh wren
catchers, however,
are on the verge
of extinction.
